


I Will Always Find You

by LLReid



Series: Written In The Stars [2]
Category: Love & Legends (Visual Novel)
Genre: AU, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Lesbian Couple, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Celtic influences, Demonology, Demons, Dwarves, Elves, F/F, Faeries - Freeform, Fantasy, Feminism, Friendship, Magic, Recovery, Royalty, Strong Female Characters, dyslexic writer, historical influences, medieval war, occult influences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-02-10 05:22:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 93,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18653746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: AU taking off in place of the last episode of Helena’s season six.Each chapter is named after a song on my Helena route playlist.





	1. Monster

The smell of smoke from the various fires lit around the dingy encampment outside the Capital took the edge of the frigid-ness out of the air that had engulfed the realm at the same time Helena had drained the sun from the sky. The endless night had fallen clear and cold, without a star in the sky and a crispness to the air that signalled the end of autumn. 

Under normal circumstances Helena would have been so overcome with guilt and shame that she would scarcely have been able to function, she would have much preferred to have been falling apart for that reason rather than because her fiancé’s life was hanging in the balance. Athena, the stubborn and foolish girl that she adored, had dove headfirst through one of the Witch Queen’s protective barrier spells to protect her and Alain. Whether she did not realise that her armour would practically scald her alive or whether she did and just decided to disregard her own wellbeing to protect her, Helena could only guess at as she knew that both were likely possibilities.

Despite her skin having become red and blistered almost immediately the mage had been able to tackle the Witch Queen to the ground, her molten armour scalding her too before she had blinked away...before she could kill her. Helena shuddered at the memory of her love’s badly injured body laying limp at her feet, bile rising up in her throat as another guttural scream emerged from the small tent where Reiner was healing her a few feet away.

So many misconceptions surrounded the notion of heroism. Far too many categorised a hero as a champion on the battlefield, a commander of legions, a master of a rare talent or ability. Granted, there had been heroes throughout history who would have fit those descriptions. A true hero sacrifices for the greater good. A hero is always true to his or her conscience. Real heroism meant doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. Although any person could come to fit that description, very few ever truly did.

Athena did, though.

No one else had barrelled through the shield. No one else had intended to protect Alain as well as her...no one but her sweet Athena.

Burns of any kind were excruciating to heal, that she knew all too well. First, the charred and dead skin had to be scraped away by hand, and then healing magic could be used — but the warmth of the magic against the raw skin made one feel as though they were being burnt from the inside out. 

“You must let me see her!,” she practically wailed. Tears were streaming down her face and her hands were trembling violently, puffs of electric blue and black magic uncontrollably seeping from her pores. Under normal circumstances she might have felt embarrassed to be breaking down in front of the Retainers, the council, and the disgraced General Ritcher — who had become their prisoner after his queen had abandoned him on the battlefield...but she could not bring herself to care about what they thought of her. She had been crying so much that it hurt her throat, when one cries that much it is almost always out of the frustration of knowing that not a damn thing they can do or attempt to do will change a horrible situation. When one feels like they need to cry, that they just need to cry to get something out, to relieve at least some of the pressure building on the inside - that is true pain...because no matter how hard they try or how badly they want to, they cannot. It just stays in place. Then, if they are lucky, one tear may escape from those painful eyes and that one small tear, that one tiny, shiny, salty drop of moisture is a means of escape. Although it is just one small tear it becomes the heaviest thing in the entire world...and it does not do a damn thing to fix anything.

She wanted to numb herself, to distance herself from reality the way she had always done when it became too difficult for her to cope with...but she did not. Athena had taught her that allowing oneself to feel pain instead of running from it was not weakness, as the Witch Queen and her parents before her had insisted it was. Feeling the pain was strength, or rather, trying to work through the pain was strength...even if she did not quite know how to make sense of her own thoughts without Athena’s patient words and gentle heart to help guide her way as she stumbled blindly through the dark abyss that had consumed her mind.

“Reiner must be allowed to work in private,” Ishara said, slowly moving to kneel down beside her on the dewy grass. The elven queen took her hand in hers, cradling it on her lap with a gentle and mothering touch. Some part of her wanted to flinch away, wanted to deny herself the comfort of a friend because she believed herself to be guilty of leading them into a trap and therefore undeserving of even the smallest scrap of kindness...but she resisted her urge to self-punish.

“If she dies I want someone to kill me, too.” The words were quiet, barely audible over the sound of life proceeding in the encampment around them. Saying such things aloud to anyone other than Athena was difficult to do, the fear that she would be punished for her impudence brewed deep within her stomach — the fact that the council and the Retainers had not punished her for the magical outburst that had drained the sun of its light continued to unsettle her...in a sickening sort of way punishment was a comfort to her, as it was what she had become accustomed to whenever she made a mistake. Perhaps that was why she dared be so impudent in the first place, perhaps she hoped that someone would hurt her on the outside even half as much as she was aching on the inside and give voice to the invisible pain that was tearing her apart at the seams.

“Oh, Helena,” Ishara breathed over the top of the heartbroken murmurs of everyone else gathered around their fire.

“Tell me she will survive, your majesty.”

“I see many futures stretched out before us, my child, far too many for me to claim one vision as truth.” The queen spoke slowly, keeping her voice as gentle as she could whilst keeping a firm hold on Helena’s hands. “You must take comfort in knowing that Reiner is doing all that he is capable of doing for her—“

“Must I?!,” she snapped. “Were it not for me we never would have been on that battlefield in the first place! Were it not for me insisting we return after our spell in Chicago she would be safe right now, uninjured! I take comfort in nothing as I have taken the one pure thing left in this world and have potentially lead it to its destruction.”

“You are not to blame for this, yathe’kosh,” Saerys said. His heterochromatic eyes gave of a soft glow in the darkness, his expression far gentler than she had ever experienced from him...which surprised her so much that it took a few moments to register that he had called her a friend.

“Then who is?”

“I am,” Alain mumbled. Sitting a few feet away with his hands bound in front of him he was an absolutely pitiful sight, with the sagging shoulders of a broken man and slate coloured eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “Had I not fallen into her trap, or had I realised nothing remained of the woman I once loved and saved her from herself by ending her life we would not be in this position. Athena would not be in this position.”

Everyone did a terrible job at hiding their shock, it was the first words Alain had said since his capture. What hit Helena the most, though, was the fact that he sounded just like her. The innate need to take the blame despite the fact he could not control the Witch Queen or predict which course her madness would lead her on ignited a sharp pang of sorrow and realisation straight through her heart. Perhaps this was what Athena felt when she got upset with herself for not being as omniscient as she believed she ought to have been.

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, to think of all the wise words Athena would say to get through to him and say them herself...but she did not have the energy. How could she even attempt to make someone else feel better when her entire world was on the verge of collapsing around her? How could she set aside the fact her heart was breaking to comfort another? Her love always seemed to do so with ease. Despite the fact Athena told her that she was not some strange paragon she could not measure up to, she believed that may have been the one thing she was wrong about. No matter how much pain the otherworldly mage was in, no matter what Helena did or said, she still found it within her heart to provide comfort and understanding...but Helena could not do the same. Not when the wails of pain coming from the tent threatened to make her lose control of everything all over again.

“What is that you are fiddling with, Helena?,” Altea asked, gesturing towards her left hand. She knew the question was intended to distract her from what was going on, but it made fresh tears rise to the corners of her eyes.

Gingerly, she opened her closed fist to reveal the wooden ring she had been working on carving by hand for weeks on end. The smooth polished circle was tiny, meant to fit around her love’s dainty finger rather than hers. Athena’s fingers were so slim that the ring felt tight halfway down on Helena’s pinkie finger, but she knew it fit her perfectly as she had tried it on her as she slept more than once. “In Athena’s world it is customary for one to give their betrothed a ring to be worn on their left hand. I...I made this for her and was going to present it to her once the war was won.”

“Betrothed?,” August gasped.

“Have I not been telling you all that it was merely a matter of time?,” Iseul smirked. Despite his bravado he did a terrible job at masking his fear, as did everyone else. They had all fallen in love with Athena, she believed it was impossible not to. Through the horrors of war and the trauma of being brought to another world due to no fault of her own the mage had held onto the charming innocence that Helena had been taken by the moment she returned her embrace in the dark forest that one ancient evening, and she knew that everyone sought to protect that even if they had never said so out loud.

“What a precious gift,” Ishara breathed, a sad smile twitching at the corners of her lips. “Athena will love this, Helena.”

“If I ever have the chance to give it to her,” she sniffled. Her eyes never left the ring as she twirled it around the tip of her pinkie, the mere size of it breaking her heart. What was she thinking allowing someone so small to become a soldier? Whilst Altea was smaller and the Witch Queen the exact same size, Athena was different. She was far too precious and gentle for such a life. She was almost frighteningly capable and resourceful, and far braver than anyone that she had ever met...but she did not belong in the middle of a war. She deserved safety.

More magic harmlessly poured from her body, dissipating into the air alongside the breaths of her companions that had turned to little clouds that were visible in the warm glow of the flickering fire. It seemed that the more she thought about things the more she ran herself in an endless loop of circles with no beginning or end in sight, she just kept going and going until she could barely make sense out of anything. Without the one person by her side who knew what she was trying to say when she did not know how to say it, her thoughts continued to wreak havoc on her mind.

When she got that way Athena would help her pick one thought to focus on. She would hold her close and they would talk through it together, they would figure out if it was real or if it was her mind attempting to play tricks on her. Then once that one thought had been settled, she would pick another, and then another, until every thought in her head was neatly squared away and she could function once again. She did her best to pick one, just one, but her mind was working so quickly that by the time she had caught a hold of one another would be assaulting her and making her feel unsafe.

Her one comfort was the heaviness of her velvet cloak weighing down upon her aching muscles, acting as a barrier between herself and the outside world. Languidly, she pulled it around herself as tightly as it would go, tucking her knees up against her chest and hugging them tightly whilst holding fistfuls of stars to keep the cloak from slipping away from her.

As time passed no one said much around their fire, no one ate and no one drank. The screams from the tent had died down, which meant that Athena was either dead or had passed out from the pain — it seemed awful to wish that she had been in so much pain that her conscious mind could no longer bare it, but that would mean she was still alive at least. Despite seeming far away from the rest of the camp they still heard the wails of other soldiers, some injured and some mourning the dead. The soft clanking of metal echoed through the stillness of the night from suits of armour and spoons rattling off of bowls as the hungry ate their share of the rations around distant fires, but there was no companionable conversation or laughter...the atmosphere so thick that it could have been cut with a knife.

“What happens to me now?,” Alain whispered to her, breaking the silence. “Will I be executed for my crimes?”

“Well I was not, was I?” A shaky sigh left her lips as she summoned the will to meet his heavy gaze. The same sadness she felt within herself was mirrored in his eyes, when the Queen had left he had lost all that he held dear...just as all that was dear to her was balancing on the edge of a cliff at that very moment. “I suspect you will face a trial once the Capital has been conquered. However, if you swear an oath of fealty and pledge your weapon to our cause you will almost certainly live.”

“Why would they allow me to simply continue living and breathing after the wickedness of my sins? To do so would make me a selfish creature, would it not?”

“No, it would not. These people are good, they know the difference between those truly wicked by nature and the broken whom wickedness has simply lead astray. If you seek redemption they will allow you to find it, and will support you on your way as they have done for me. They are not like her.”

Alain nodded only once, but did not seem at all convinced that what she was saying was true. She remembered being in that place during her trial, being trapped in that utterly hopeless darkness has been a torment that her love had helped free her from. Athena had promised her she would never allow her to fall, that she would never give up on her the way everyone else had...and even upon hearing the true extent of her own wicked deeds she had not once looked at her as if she were a monster — she had not once been afraid of her. 

For the longest time she had hoped they would eventually have Alain on their side, yet there he was and she could not overcome her own exhaustion to say everything she wanted to say to him. She knew that words were simply pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power, too. Words could light fires in the minds of men, women, and children alike. Words could wring tears from the hardest hearts when used correctly. But instead of talking she just reached out and quietly placed her hand on top of his, hoping that the small gesture would say enough for the time being.

When his thumb hooked over hers she knew he understood. That one small mercy acting as a sliver of hope that things might be okay, that after such a brutal battle things might continue getting better. 

For the longest time she had waded in the shallow end of feelings, so it was easy not to be too disappointed when the few good things she had were crushed underfoot. Having grown since then, having gained so much, it was not so easy to dismiss her pain. Perhaps that was the caveat of happiness and of love...that pain, unfortunately, went hand in hand with it. Just like life and death were intertwined, maybe death was the price one must eventually pay for having been given the privilege to love another so deeply. How love could be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and left out the hardships, Helena did not know. She realised that it is far too easy to enjoy the good times and dislike the bad ones. Anybody could do that, if they so wished. The real challenge was to love the good and the bad together, not because one needed to take the rough with the smooth but because one needed to go far beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety. So she let in the bad feelings, surrendered herself to them and focused all that she could on breathing deeply as that familiar grief and pain made themselves known to her like never before. She knew the absolute absurdity of fate and fortune and nature more truly than any human should have been allowed to come to know it. The worst would take its time to come, and then to pass like a wave washing over her. The truth was that no one could have prepared her for what she was feeling in that moment, not even Athena, nor could she even begin to attempt to convey just how deeply the thought of losing her was hurting her through language. It was a grief that one must know to understand, and that she would not wish upon anyone in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after the song ‘Monster’ by Annabelle ❤️


	2. Safe and Sound

Nobody can protect you from your suffering, not entirely. A person cannot cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even wish it away. It is just there, and they have no choice but to survive it. They must endure it. They have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as they can in the direction of their best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by their own desire to heal, no matter what obstacles present themselves.

Healing magic was limited, even Reiner Wolfson’s. He was an absolute bear of a man, tall and muscular with the natural self assurance that a Lord needed to command. However, when he had emerged from their tent deep into what was assumed to be the wee hours of the morning with sagging shoulders and his undershirt askew off of his muscular frame with the weight of the sweat and blood caking it he barely looked at all like himself. His face had seemingly aged five years in a matter of hours, dark bags that were so black they appeared almost like bruises lined his golden eyes, and uncharacteristically disheveled and greasy red hair concealed his scar almost entire from view. He had done all that he could for Athena and worn himself out to the brink of physical collapse in the process...but even with all that effort the young woman would be in for a hellish recovery period. 

Before Reiner had allowed her to be with her love he had explained that whilst his magic had healed the flesh wounds and saved Athena from any scarring, the trauma deep within her bones remained. She would be weakened significantly for a while, feverish, and suffering severe flulike symptoms — it was understandable, really, as taking one’s body from the brink of death and returning it to health was as much of a shock to the system as the actual injury was.

Despite the fact that Athena was comatose when they were reunited, she somehow made the whole world feel different just by being there. Her newly healed skin was too sensitive to tolerate her clothes or the weight of a blanket, but Reiner had strategically placed two thin sheets across her body to protect her modesty. Even after all she had gone through she still looked like herself, which was a comfort. Her near-waist-length raven hair was spread out across the bedroll like messy chocolate halo, her face relaxed into an almost babyish expression. If it were not for the laboured, raspy breaths she could have pretended that she was merely asleep.

“I dropped my blades and she escaped,” she sniffled, gently taking one of her hands into her own and dotting kisses on each of her fingers. “I am sorry, my love.”

Athena did not answer or so much as stir at the sound of her voice, which hurt...even if she knew that it was not a deliberate snub. She was so used to her being able to respond that she had perhaps begun to take the sweet sound of her lilting accent for granted, despite how strange she had found it at first it had become one of her most favourite sounds. 

In her life, she may not have gone where she intended to go, but sitting there by her love’s bedside she knew she had ended up exactly where she needed to be. She was the answer to every prayer she had offered. She was a song, a dream, a whisper, and she did not know how she could have lived without her for as long as she did — even thinking of surviving an entire world away from her could cause the seeds of panic to begin to take root if she mused on the thought for too long...to calm herself down she had to remind herself that Athena would always find her. Always. Soulmates find one another regardless of what tried to pull them apart, that was her absolution.

Those who overcome great challenges will be changed and often in unexpected ways, as she sat there in the silence of their tent and mused over the journey that she and Athena had taken together she realised this all by herself for the first time. For our struggles enter our lives as unwelcome guests, but they bring valuable gifts. And once the pain subsides, the gifts remain. These gifts are life's truest treasures, bought at great price, but cannot be acquired in any other way. She was an entirely different person than she had been merely a few years prior, changing and evolving with each challenge that she overcame despite the fact that at the time she did not realise just how much she was growing. Strange as it was, it was almost like moment-to-moment nothing changed at all but looking back everything was different.

Once upon a time no one would have believed that she was a good enough person to be trusted to care for an unconscious woman without supervision, no one would have believed that she was capable of the gentleness required to tend to someone in such a fragile state — let alone respect her wishes when she refused to allow any other to so much as touch Athena’s body whilst she was unable to communicate her consent. She knew all too well what some people would do to an unconscious woman if they were given the opportunity, so she insisted that she be the one to care for her instead of allowing the army medics to take over where Reiner’s magic had left off.

Using as gentle a touch as she could, she spread a balm that the alchemists had mixed specially across every inch of her body. The sky blue paste was similar to the mixture she had crafted after the kidnapping that had lead to Athena spending days in the dungeon of her castle, the only difference was that it was distinctly colder.

“May I enter, Helena?,” Ishara said from outside the tent flap. Her voice startled her, she had expected her to have retired to her own tent...but perhaps she was not the only one who was not the sleeping sort.

With permission granted the queen entered with a mug of tea between her slender brown hands. She did not say anything as she handed it to her, but her eyes were expressive enough that she did not have to. 

“Thank you, your majesty.” Her voice was hoarse from all her crying, each word scratching mercilessly like a blade on the inside of her neck.

“She will awaken soon, you need not fear any longer.” Ishara knelt down at her side, green irises never straying from the unconscious woman before them. 

“When she does I will direct my attention towards undoing the damage I have caused. I apologise—“

“No, you need not apologise for this.” The queen’s interjection was filled with kindness, but firm enough that she knew there was no room for argument. “She crafted that barrier between the two of you knowing that Athena would dive through when she sensed you were in danger, her plan all along was to harm her.”

“I know.”

“Anyone would have reacted in the same way you did upon seeing your beloved in such a state, had it been Veda in her position I would have become just as inconsolable. There is no need for the guilt or shame that you bare.”

She nodded, taking a long and slow sip of the warm drink between her hands. “I have not become unworthy of the armour that protected me once again, have I? Usually Athena would answer that question for me as I am not always the most perceptive when it comes to matters concerning myself...and I...worry...that I might unintentionally disappoint the council, that I might disgrace myself all over again.”

“We are all products of our past, Helena, but we do not have to be prisoners of it. Change, like healing, takes time. You are not a bad person just because you were at fault once. We must grow from our faults and strive to be a better person. Being a good person is not a destination, it is something we must pursue at all times. Sometimes, we will fail but that is alright. I felt both the change in your heart and how much you have healed from the torments of your past the night I broke the curse upon you, there is truly no need to fear yourself any longer.”

She nodded, gratefully, at that. It always meant something when someone other than Athena believed she was a good person. She tried incredibly hard to be a good person and to leave the world a better place. To feel that she had in any small way succeeded was a prize beyond all real measure, the most wonderful wealth that she could ever ask for, a form of prosperity that she would wish for the whole world to experience and enjoy, too.

“And Alain, your majesty, what of him? Do you believe he has the will to change as I have?”

“You know him and his story better than I, Helena. What do you believe?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing emerged. Doubt caught a foothold, the irrational fear that she may give the wrong answer and later be punished for it assaulting her already exhausted mind.

“You can be honest, Helena. Your opinion holds value.”

“I...I believe that...sometimes, perhaps, it is how one shines in the darkness during another’s misery that is remembered more than anything they could have said or done when they have suffered just as much. Alain held onto his kindness despite how he suffered...and I think....that if he wishes to he could change.”

Ishara smiled and nodded her head. “I will remember those words and consider them during his hearing. Thank you for your candour.”

She smiled, reaching out to brush a stray strand of Athena’s hair out of her face. Part of her wondered if she could hear what was being said but just did not have the energy to respond, the way one trapped within a feverish daze often could. Even if she could not she would recount every word of the conversation when she woke, as she knew it was one that Athena would be proud of — it always did make her happy when she was able to relax enough to hold informal conversations with other people.

Ishara sat with her until she had finished her tea, and then left to go and check in with the others to be sure that they were resting. Upon parting she asked her to get some sleep, too, but she knew that sleep would refuse to grace her with its presence until she knew Athena was alright. Regardless of that, though, Ishara’s company had certainly been a welcomed kindness that she had not expected to receive.

How strange it was to think that she had once been her enemy.

—

Days passed by concealed by the darkness. Athena did not stir, and Helena did not leave her side. People visited, brought her food and tea, but she had not the stomach for either. Everything she tried to consume only made her stomach ache more, made the acidic bile that rose up in her throat every time the whispers in her head became too loud sting even more.

If given half the chance she probably would have joined her fiancé in her coma.

As Helena cared for the unconscious mage she found herself wondering if this was how helpless Athena had felt during their first few days in Chicago. Whilst she could still walk, talk, and care for herself then she knew that it had been a terrifying experience for her love despite the fact the only thing that had been absent were her memories. This time Athena was entirely helpless and vulnerable, unable to do anything at all for herself. Helena cleaned her, and brushed her hair, and continued to give her the medicines that the Alchemists had made for her, and once her skin was less sensitive she tucked her beneath her favourite blanket in the hopes that it would provide at least some comfort to her.  
As much as she wanted to, she could not even begin to focus on the unending darkness outside the confines of their tent. Not when her love was still in such a fragile state.

Ishara had told her that it was only a matter of time before she woke, but that did not matter. She still felt sick with worry, lumped with perhaps worst pair of opposite feelings to experience at once; boredom and terror. Sometimes a person’s life can be like a pendulum, swinging between one to the other. There is not a whisper in the winds, nor a star in the inky blackness of the sky. The minutes and hours last forever. They become so bored they sink into a state of apathy that is as close to a coma that a person can be without actually being comatose. Then things become rough and emotions are spun into a frenzy. Yet even these two opposites do not always remain distinct. In boredom there are elements of terror: breaking down into tears; the bottomless dread that consumes every inch of a person’s being; they scream; they may even deliberately hurt themselves and in the grasp of terror — the worst storm — a person yet still feels boredom, a deep weariness with everything.

“I did not think myself capable of working through my darkest thoughts without you, my love, but I have...not all the way, my mind is still a frightful place to be at the moment. I believe you will be proud of me when you wake, regardless of that fact, though.” As she spoke she idly combed her fingers through the freshly combed raven hair that spread out across the pillow beside her, more for her own comfort than anything else. “Is this what you meant when you once told me that who a person is is not so much what they do, but rather what they find they are capable of when they least expect it? I...I admit that at the time I did not quite understand what you meant by that, but I think that I do now. It may sound childish but I have been imagining what you would say to me when I find my thoughts overwhelming me...I ask myself ‘would Athena say this to you?’ and if the answer to that question is ‘no’ then I refuse to feed into it. I refuse to give it the power to upset me. It is such a simple method, but it has been working.”

Her words were met with silence, as she knew that they would be, but in a strange way pretending like Athena could hear her helped. She found herself speaking to her just as often as she did when she was capable of answering back, she said all the same things and was as open as she always was in her presence — something about not holding anything inside made her feel physically lighter.

“I still have not slept, though. Some part of me is scared to sleep in case you awaken or incase you somehow need me whilst I am resting. The others have offered to help me care for you but I have politely declined all of their offers, whilst I know that I can trust them not to harm you I would not feel right about allowing anyone to touch you...as I know how it feels to have another give your body to someone else.” She sighed shakily and continued, “I do not think I have ever told you about the time I woke to find myself in Lennox’s chambers with no memory of how I got there. Whilst he insisted that he did not have his way with me, I have never been able to remember if he was lying or not. It was a horrid feeling...and it is why I have been so protective of you. The Retainers would never harm you, that I am certain of, but I still cannot risk ever making you feel the way I did that morning in Lennox’s quarters.”

She fell into silence at that, and found herself wondering how many times she had been in a state similar to that. How many times had she been unconscious, defenceless, and how many times had the Witch Queen continued to harm her? How many times had she continued to cut into her, rape her, or otherwise torment her well past the point of awareness? How many times had she been punished for losing consciousness? How many times had she had no one to care for her the way she was caring for Athena? All emotions, even those that are suppressed and unexpressed, have physical effects. Unexpressed emotions tend to stay in the body like small ticking time bombs — they are illnesses in incubation. It was not often that Helena cried for herself, not often that she indulged in what she believed to be self-pitying...but having already long since past her constitution for emotional pain, she allowed herself to shed a few tears for herself. For what was done to her.

Athena always told her that the more she faced the truth, the angrier she would probably become. According to her, she had a right to be angry about being sexually abused, even if she had been pressured into agreeing to certain things. She had a right to be angry with the perpetrator, with the people who knew and did nothing to help, or with the world if she so wished it, regardless of how long ago the sexual abuse occurred.

She survived by seizing every tiny drop of what she had believed to have been ‘love’ that she could find anywhere, and milking it for all that it was worth. She had sought love, anywhere she thought that she could find it, whether it was by committing unforgivable crimes or baking cookies when she needed the smallest drops of affection. She had sought those tiny droplets of ‘love’, basking in them when she found them. They sustained her, she believed. For all those years she had lived under the illusion that somehow, she had made it because she was tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. Really, though, she made it because love was so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism she devised to get by. But, in reality, it had always been her ability to never give up, to endure, and her resourcefulness to make that ‘love’ last long enough to sustain her. That was what had gotten her by.

Things were different now, though. She understood that the ‘love’ given to her by the Witch Queen was merely just another abuse of power. Real love did not hurt, nor did it have to be earned like a dog seeking a bone. She could not tell if she loved Athena from the first moment she saw her, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But she remembered the first moment she looked at her walking toward her in the gardens of the Witch Queen’s castle and she realised that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when she was with her. Love, like everything else in ones life, should be a discovery, an endless adventure, and like most adventures, a person does not know they are having one until they find themselves right in the middle of it. The truest love’s were those that held immeasurable power; true love could endure any circumstance and reach across any distance.

“Ahem.” The soft sound drew Helena’s attention towards the flap of their tent as it rustled before gingerly opening to reveal a sheepish looking Alain clutching a bouquet of yellow roses in his hands. Yellow roses, friendship and care. “I...I found these on the outskirts of camp whilst I was walking the perimeter with August and I...I thought that you and Athena may like them.”

“Thank you. Would...would you like to come in?”

He nodded and slowly entered the tent, his face visibly contorting at the sight of the unconscious woman bundled up in her warm blanket. Despite everyone knowing that Athena was not the Witch Queen, she believed that some part of Alain had still hoped that she might be his old friend rid of her evils.

“Is she...well?,” he asked, quietly. 

“She is feverish, but according to Queen Ishara she should wake any day now.”

Alain nodded, a mousy strand of his hair flopping down onto his forehead with the movement of his head. It was somewhat bizarre to see him out of her colours, sitting there beside her in a plain white undershirt that probably belonged to August he looked nothing like the former general she had lived and fought alongside for years. “They all talk of you as if you are truly one of their number now, you know. All of them, even King Barzilai spoke fondly of you. They not only respect you, but care for you...for both of you.”

“They could come to respect and care for you too if you chose to let them. You must believe me when I say that none of them are the monsters that she tried to convince us that they were.”

“I know. It may have only been a few days since I have been here but I have witnessed that for myself. They do not trust me at all, but they are kind to me...they share their meagre rations with me and have even given me a clean set of clothing when I have done nothing to deserve them.” A defeated, humourless laugh escaped from the back of his throat as he shook his head in disbelief. “Queen Ishara even told me that I may not even have to suffer through a trial if I swear an oath of fealty in front of the entire army...she said something about how you have continually vouched for me. Why?”

“Because Athena has taught me how to stop judging myself for the things that someone else did to me, and I wish to do the same for you. I almost lost my life during my trial and would have if it were not for her support...and I...I do not wish to see you suffer through the indignity of having to tell your story in front of so many strangers.”

“There are...months...that have simply vanished entirely from my mind,” he confessed, squeezing his eyes tightly closed as if to protect himself, “I was distressed at the thought of having to defend or confess to orders that I do not remember following. How does one explain that to others and seek their understanding when they do not understand the mechanism of it themselves?”

“That happened to me, too.”

At that his eyes flickered open, locking onto hers. In the soft glow of the lanterns she could see the unspent tears glazing over the curious gaze. There was no aggression behind it, he simply seemed more bewildered than anything else.

“In Athena’s world they have a name for it: disassociation,” she continued. “It happens when a person has been through a traumatic event and their brain literally involuntarily shuts itself off to protect itself from the pain. Until visiting Chicago I believed that it made me a selfish and wicked person, but it is such a normal reaction that they have entire books about it there...shelves and shelves filled with books about trauma, and all of them have chapters dedicated entirely to those unsettling blank periods. It is fascinating how much they understand there, how they have given voice and rational explanations to the most indescribable thing a person can experience.”

Alain gaped at her, his eyes as wide as saucepans. “Truly?”

“Truly. It is strange is it not, that a child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman? It seems to be only you and I, with our big brains and our withered hearts that have almost been severed from our chests too many times to count, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.”

“Such was her plan all along, I believe. She made us unable to trust anything that did not come from her lips, made us so insecure that even trusting our own sense of logic became a challenge.”

Something passed between them then, something so subtle that anyone else might have missed it. Something that was peace and understanding and an apology all rolled into one flickering moment. Closure, perhaps. Or the knowledge that perhaps they were at the beginning of what could potentially blossom into a beautiful friendship. Whatever it was went unsaid, though, but that did not matter as she knew that Alain felt it as strongly as she did. Sometimes, it seemed, the simplest solution out of conflict is understanding and choosing to become someone’s friend, instead of saying goodbye to them forever. The truth was, unless one chose to let go, unless they forgive themselves, unless they forgive the situation, unless you realise that the situation is over, they cannot move forward into something better. Into a kinder place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after the song ‘Safe and Sound’ by Madilyn Bailey ❤️


	3. Grow As We Go

The inside of Helena’s head was a horrible place to be at the best of times, but since her love’s injury it had become even more like a war zone than it already was. On one hand she wanted nothing more than to stay by her side and care for her until she roused, but on the other she wanted to hunt the Witch Queen down and give her a slow and painful death for what she had done to the one person who had never done anything to deserve such punishment. Her every thought like a terribly viscous fight between two wolves. One wolf was evil. He was anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf was good. He was joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. Which wolf would win would be decided upon whichever one she chose to feed, whichever part of herself she chose to embrace.

She was both good and bad, dark and light, gentle and powerful. How the woman who was capable of unparalleled tenderness whilst alone with her love could also have the will and the amount of power sleeping beneath the surface that was needed to drain the very sun itself, she did not know...but she did. As much as she scared everyone else, she scared herself more.

Helena awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful human being, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. During the course of each day her heart would descend from her chest into her stomach. By the time noon rolled around she was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for her, and by the desire to be completely alone to do her penance. By dusk she was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of her grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone in his self-hatred, alone even in her loneliness as her love drifted between coma and a state of confused delirium by her side. ‘I am not sad’, she would repeat to herself over and over, ‘I am not sad’. As if she might one day convince herself. Or fool herself, maybe. Or convince other people — the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. ‘I am not sad. I am not sad’. She would fall asleep with her heart at the foot of the bedroll, like some domesticated animal that was no part of her at all. And each morning she would wake with it again in the cupboard of her rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but somehow still pumping. And by the mid-afternoon she was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. 

It had been five days since they had last saw the sun, five days since the siege on the Capital had begun, and five days since she had last had an intelligent conversation with her love. Athena’s body was seemingly entirely healed and she had small spells of consciousness, but the raging fever had not broken and when she woke she was so confused that it just broke her heart even more than it did to see her sleeping. 

It was the fever, according to Reiner and the healers. Such extensive injuries followed by such extensive healing would leave a person ill, that she understood, but what she did not understand was one word of the delirious rambling that occurred when the younger woman woke. Random things would come up, such as how she missed a delicacy called ‘cheesecake’ or she would peculiarly hallucinate that Sophie was by her side, but it was when she began speaking fluently in an ancient dialect of the demonic language that she knew she should have no way of knowing that she would begin to worry.

Neither she, Saerys, or even Queen Ishara could figure out what she was trying to say or discern how she knew the language in the first place...as it was so ancient that it had died out many centuries before the elven queen had even been born. So they took notes, wrote down everything she was saying, and had messengers run with them back to the elven archives where Crown Princess Iraia and Imhon could search the recovered demonic scrolls that they kept there.

“Helena, you must rest,” Reiner sighed. 

She knew everyone’s eyes were on her as she anxiously paced around the campfire, choosing to ignore the darkness overhead with each step she wore into the grass beneath her boots. “If the Witch Queen has done something to her mind then I must know it! If I cannot protect her then—“

“The Queen has demonic ancestry,” Alain interjected, quietly. All attention fell on him, which he was clearly uncomfortable with as his eyes remained focused on the cup of warm tea he was nursing between his palms. “It is not common knowledge, but her ancestor was the bastard child of Grand Duke Astaroth. He had his namesake, but was raised in human lands with his mother in her ancestral home near the border of the dwarven domain.”

“You mean she is related to the mad duke who burned people alive and severed soul bonds for sport?,” Saerys scoffed.

“Well, my friends, it seems that her madness is indeed rooted in the blood as I have been suspecting for many, many years now. You may hold the applause for my genius,” Iseul quipped, making everyone chuckle.

“That does not explain why my Athena is suddenly speaking a dead language that she should have no way of knowing.” She knew her remark sounded far sharper than she had intended it to, but she was in no mood for laughter or companionable lightheartedness. “She is not of this world, and until a year-and-a-half ago she had no idea that any other species besides humans existed. She did not know of magic, elves, faeries, dwarves, mermaids, nor of demons.”

“You said that time moves much slower in the other world than it does here, no?,” Altea asked.

“Yes.”

“What do you know of Athena’s lineage, Helena?” Reiner’s deep and gravelly voice was infused with exhaustion, but he was trying to keep his tone as light as he could and she knew that. The question angered her, though. There were all sorts of things he could be insinuating by even asking it and she did not have the energy to handle it diplomatically.

“I know enough to know that she would not want me to deliver the dramatic monologue you seem to be expecting. I will not tell her story for her...it is not my place and I will not breach her trust to satisfy anyone’s morbid curiosity.”

“I apologise, it would be unfair to expect you to do so,” the redhead sighed. “However, she is speaking fluently in a dead language that, as you have attested, she should have no way of knowing. All I am saying is that perhaps there are things about her than no one, possibly even Athena herself, is privy to.”

“Fevers often tend to make one say the strangest things, do they not?,” she snapped.

“Strange, yes. Speaking in a language that died out thousands of years ago and likely does not exist in the world of her origin, no,” August retorted.

At that she excused herself, returning to their tent to be with her love. The others meant no harm and were trying to figure out the problem as much as she was, but it upset her to hear them talking about her and creating all sorts of conspiracies about Athena — especially since she did not have the mental nor physical energy to rebuttal every little insinuation. 

For days she had not left Athena’s side, unless it was to relieve herself. She had spent hours nursing her through the spikes of the fever, placing frozen rags on her forehead and practically pouring vials of tonics down her throat when she was alert enough to swallow them without choking. She had held her through her delirium, calmed her when the hallucinations sent her into a frantically wailing mess, and indulged in the most random conversations she knew she would have no memory of when all she wanted was to talk.

Everyone else continued to ask to help, but every time she refused. Athena had taken care of her so many times in the past, so it was an honour to now be returning the favour. It was something she did willingly, a job that was higher on her priority list than bringing back the sun, figuring out how Athena had suddenly gained knowledge of a dead language, or even killing the Witch Queen. Everything would wait until Athena was fighting fit once again, and she did not give a damn what anyone else had to say about that.

“I wish to love you, always,” she whispered to the sleeping woman as she gently pulled her into her arms, cradling her like a baby against her chest as she sat back against the pillows. “When this dark hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of your youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen in your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face, I will treasure you all the more, because I will have been there to see it all. I plan on sharing your life with you and I loving you until the last breath leaves your body or mine...and I do not want that day to come for a long, long time. You must promise to never endanger yourself like that again...I understand that with your noble and stubborn heart that may be a struggle but I...I need you to survive. I will not survive without you. I do not wish to survive without you.”

“The entire universe conspired to help me find you, so I sure as hell don’t plan on dying until we’re both old and grey.” The quiet, raspy words startled her...she sounded coherent. For the first time in days she had spoken a full, non-disjointed sentence.

Immediately Helena’s palm flew to the younger woman’s forehead to check her temperature. When the skin there did not practically scald her, she tested her cheeks, then her stomach, and her armpits — all whilst ignoring the grumbles of annoyance from the groggy woman who was clinging to her. 

“Are you well?! Does anything hurt?! Do you feel ill?!—“

“I feel exhausted and, um, kinda hungry...very hungry, actually. Like the ‘I could eat an entire batch of lemon cookies all by myself’ kinda hungry,” Athena groaned, sleepily. Her eyes were still bloodshot and trapped behind a watery glaze when they flickered open, but they focused on her instead of frantically darting around their tiny living space in the same way they had done every time she had opened them over the past few days. 

The noise that escaped from the back of her throat was a half-laugh and half a sigh of relief, followed by the tears she had been holding back spilling down her cheeks. They were the sacred sort of tears for another person, messengers of overwhelming grief and of an unspeakable amount of love — the sort of tears that signified a pure heart and an unbreakable bond. 

“I shall make you as many batches of lemon cookies as you wish when we get home, my love. I promise...I promise,” she sobbed whilst peppering kisses around her warm face. “I will do anything to make you happy, anything at all...just....just do not ever leave me....and do not ever stray so close to death again. Please do not, my heart cannot take it. I...I almost lost you. I came so close to losing you.”

“I’m sorry,” Athena whimpered, nuzzling closer to her with what little strength she held within her exhausted little body. “I didn’t stop to think what seeing me injured would do to you. I just couldn’t let her hurt you again.”

It wasn’t the most dignified moment they’d ever shared, laying there in that cramped little tent both with greasy hair and pasty faces that were blotchy from their tears, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Crying is a way to realise all sorts of ugly little pressures and tensions that had accumulated in the soul, most without a person even noticing...and being able to be that vulnerable with another without fear of judgement eased the heart.

With Athena she truly felt like she had managed to make something she could maybe call her world, her home…over time…little by little. And when she was inside it, to some extent, she felt relieved. But the very fact she felt she had to make such a world probably meant that she was a weak person, that she bruises easily, the darkest part of her mind would scream over and over. And in the eyes of society at large, that world of hers was a puny little thing. Almost like a children’s playhouse made from sticks and leaves: a strong puff of wind might carry it off somewhere. Regardless of the fragility of this world, and regardless of the voice in her head that was calling her a selfish and foolish creature, she vowed to protect it above all else...no matter what she had to do or sacrifice to do so.

She would not lose Athena, not ever.

She would destroy the world and everything in it before losing her forever.

Between the tears and salty kisses she managed to tell her what had happened after she had thrown herself through the barrier. She recounted how the sight of her dead-looking body had panicked her to the extent she had lost control. She told her her how as soon as as the Witch Queen had blinked away both she and Alain had tried to strip her of her molten armour, only to be dragged away from her by August and Saerys to stop them from burning themselves. She talked about how she had been healed, how she had cared for her...and briefly mentioned the odd language she had spoken in.

Under normal circumstances she knew Athena would have a thousand questions, but she was too tired to really absorb the extent of everything she had been told. So after a brief explanation Helena just held her as close as she could and revelled in the chaste kisses they were sharing. Despite everything Athena still tasted like Athena, those lips were still soft and her kisses gentle. 

“Is it strange to say that I have missed you? You were right here...but in soul it was as if you had gone somewhere that I could not follow and I— I...I missed you dreadfully,” she whispered, merely inches from Athena’s lips.

“It’s not strange.” The brunette moved to rest her brow against hers, an uncharacteristically cold hand moving to push a few of the messy blonde strands of hair that framed her face out of her eyes and then caressing her cheek. “I know how hard this was for you, sweetheart....but I need you to know that I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any possible version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you. My love for you is never going away, not death or space or time could ever make that go away.”

“I was so afraid.” The confession was so quiet that it could have been mistaken for a rustle in the sheets, a ripple in the fabric of their tent in a gust of wind, but it came out easily and without fear that admitting such weakness would resort in punishment of any kind. “This world means nothing to me without you in it and for those few seconds that I believed you to be dead I...all I could think about was how meaningless life was. About how I did not want it to go on if you were not there to experience it. About how I did not want anyone to smile, or laugh, or be happy in a world that you did not exist in. Does that make me a bad person?”

“It makes you human...but I never want you to destroy the world for me.”

“Without you I am nothing—“

“No,” Athena interjected, softly. “You are Helena Klein, still. Always. You are kind and smart and funny and a good person, I don’t make you any of those things. You are strong and you are brave...and you have to carry on even if you don’t see me there.”

“That is strength and heroism that I do not possess.”

“That’s not true. Don’t give up on the world because of me, alright?”

She shook head, vehemently, and did not try to hold back the choked sob that escaped from the back of her throat. “No. I will not lose you.”

There was nothing on earth more beautiful to her than Athena’s smile and the dimples that accompanied it...no sound sweeter than her girlish laughter...no pleasure greater than holding her in her arms and knowing that there was nowhere else the mage would rather have been. Charming and lovely as she was there could be a thousand contenders for her heart, but she chose her time and again. Helena could never live without her, the stubborn little hellion that she was. In this life and the next, she was her only hope of happiness. 

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit keys, and keys to fit locks. When one feels safe enough to open the locks, their truest selves step out and they can be completely and honestly the best version of who they are supposed to be; they can be loved for who they are and not for who they were pretending to be, or who they had been manipulated into becoming. Each person unveils the best parts of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around them, with that one person they are safe in their own little paradise — untouchable to the rest of the world. A real soulmate is someone who shares one’s deepest longings, their sense of direction. A soulmate is the one who makes life itself come to life.

Calmness eventually suffused her and she snuggled deeper into Athena’s arms, her heart clenching when she tightened her hold on her and tucked her under her chin, burying her face in her disheveled white-blonde hair. After a while her breathing slowed and her hold relaxed. Convinced she had fallen asleep, Helena whispered, "You should have been my first." A small ache pierced her heart at the thought and it threatened to make her cry all over again, had she not been all out of tears she more than likely would have dissolved into a hysterical mess once again.

“I’ll be your last.”

—

The full moon, well risen in a cloudless sky, covered the high crowded camp with its light. The fact that the moon had graced them with its presence, finally, at the same time Athena had begun regaining her strength was a mercy. Helena had realised that for the majority of her life she had taken the daylight for granted, she had never been conscious of daylight as that which displaces darkness. Daylight, in a strange sense, tended to seem like the natural condition of the earth, with the warmth of the sun and the crystal blue skies. Moonlight, however, was an entirely different matter. Moonlight was not constant or consistent, the full moon blooms, wanes, and then returns again.  
The moonlight fell upon the campsite and the grass, separating one long blade of it from another; transforming a pile of brown, slightly frosted leaves from a undefinable mass into innumerable fragments. It glimmered lengthways across the water troughs, as if the very light itself was ductile. Long, pale moonbeams poured white and sharp between tents and trees, their clarity fading as they disappeared further into the powdery, misty woodland that surrounded the Capital.

Helena could not take moonlight for granted, though. Much like the snow or the dew on the grass on a warm midsummer morning, it did not reveal but somehow changed everything in engulfed. With its low intensity it made her conscious of the fact that it added something to the world, giving it a singularly beautiful quality that was far too easy to marvel in amongst the knowledge that it would soon be gone again.

She wanted more than anything to bask in the beauty of it, but she could not. Not when she had to bring back the sun without the faintest idea how she would do that, not whilst Athena was still so frail and distressed about not knowing or understanding a word of the language she had spoken whilst trapped in the clutches of her fever.

“There were rumours that the first Grand Duke Astaroth had a daughter which he sent away before he was murdered by his mad bastard son,” Saerys mused whilst shovelling a mouthful of dwarven root bread into his mouth. “I remember hearing of the ancient ruler, about how he had seven sons and one daughter with an exiled Ailerose princess from Eclaciel...I forget her name, though—“

“Renée,” Altea said, quickly. “Her name was Renée Elisabeth Ailerose and she was the crown princess of Eclaciel, exiled for her refusal to marry the son of King Klaus, of the dwarven lands.”

“Yes, right,” the demon nodded. “Legends said that Grand Duke Astaroth’s daughter was his one weakness, so he sent her away...but no one ever knew where.”

“But that was hundreds of years ago, right?,” Athena asked.

“Thousands, I believe,” Saerys nodded.

“I’m not thousands of years old, though.”

“Time is a strange thing, Athena, it moves differently between worlds. You and Helena spent only a few weeks in Chicago but returned to find that many months had passed here.” Ishara spoke with the confidence and self assurance everyone was used to from her, despite the fact her brow was furrowed as she tried to make sense of the situation. “Chances are that you have been alive for just as long, if not longer than I, despite the fact you are a young woman in her prime.”

“Yeah...but that doesn’t change the fact I’m quite clearly not a demon,” the frustrated american huffed. 

“You have mentioned before in passing that you were adopted when you were three years old,” August mentioned.

“And what does that have to do with anything?!” Athena seemed to startle herself by raising her voice, her face contorting in shame and the discomfort that came with others attempting to chip away at such a sensitive subject matter. Her weak muscles had become rigid, taut with the emotional turmoil she knew was playing out inside her head. It was not often that she had ever seen her get that way, so it was taking every ounce of self-control she had not to fly into a rage at everyone who was upsetting her.

“When one does not want to talk about their family there is usually a reason,” she muttered, taking her hand as a sign of silent support.

“I did not mean any offence,” August muttered, apologetically.

“I know, I just— I understand there’s a lot you guys don’t know about me and me apparently speaking some dead language has only added another layer to that...but talking about my upbringing isn’t something I’m comfortable with or willing to do. Not because I’m hiding anything, I just...um...I just don’t like talking about it.”

“How terrible a thing it is to have to recover from one’s childhood,” Queen Ishara sighed. A few murmurs of agreement rumbled around the fire and everyone seemingly simultaneously took a bite of their rations. “I will not ask you to recount any childhood misery, Athena, but I do ask that you do not close yourself off to the possibility that you very well could be of this world in some capacity. Do you know anything at all of the people you believe to be your birth parents?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?,” Ishara prodded.

Athena shook her head.

“Athena, anything you could give us right now would help.”

“No, alright!? I don’t know who they were! I was found wandering a city street naked and by myself at two years old! I couldn’t speak or understand english and I was apparently sporting a black eye so bad that the doctors couldn’t figure out how I didn’t lose my eyesight all together. Whoever they were, they beat the shit out of me and then dumped me on the streets to fend for myself!” 

Athena had never stormed away before, nor had she ever raised her voice at royalty, let alone doing both in quick succession. Helena’s stomach clenched as she watched her retreat beyond the tree-line, raven hair flowing behind her like a dark cape.

“Helena, I did not intend to upset her so,” Ishara cringed, breaking the stunned silence that had fallen over the group.

“I know...but I would sincerely appreciate it if everyone could perhaps wait until she is in a less fragile state before the interrogations begin. She has done nothing wrong, and saved every one of your lives merely a few days ago, yet you all act as if this is some sort of inquisition. It seems rather uncalled for.”

She did not wait for anyone to respond, instead taking off after Athena.

The mage was lying down by the side of the trail with her back against a mossy tree trunk, staring up at the moon through the branches of an oak tree, and likely remembering things she would rather not have. The woods do that to a person, perhaps it is because they always look familiar no matter what world they are in, long lost, like the face of a long-dead loved one, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past womanhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify by their own lonely familiarity to that comforting feeling.

Without saying a word she sank down beside her, taking her hand in hers. She did not say anything and did not try to make it better, because she knew she could not. All she could do was be there.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Athena whimpered, eventually, her crystalline eyes locked onto the sky overhead. “I just...I don’t feel like myself. I was such a bitch back there for no reason, like I should have just answered their questions and be helping you figure out how to bring back the sun instead of wallowing inside my own head.”

“Do not forsake your pain to please others, my love. You are always the strong one, always the people pleaser, but you are allowed to express your pain.” She pressed a kiss on her temple, squeezing her hand gently in her own. “I think you are still exhausted after all you have been through, it is understandable that you will be feeling far more vulnerable than normal.”

“Yeah...that’s probably it. I owe everyone an apology, though. I shouldn’t have yelled or stormed away like a teenager, no matter how frustrated or uncomfortable I was. That wasn’t okay.“

“They will forgive you, everyone’s nerves are running high...a few outbursts are more than understandable.”

“I might only have been coherent for a few hours but already you’re the one person who isn’t pissing me off.” 

“Well I am honoured,” she smirked. “I did not stop to consider that you might want to be alone before following—“

“You count as alone.” Athena gave her a soft smile and then moved her head, resting it on her shoulder. “We can be alone but be alone together, which is one of the things I love about us. I just like having you close by, it comforts me.”

“Me too, my love, me too. I am not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after the song ‘Grow As We Go’ by Ben Platt ❤️


	4. Feels Like Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Child abuse

Helena had done her damnedest to banish as many memories of her home village as she possibly could. Even before the one spectacular magical panic attack that had slaughtered every living soul who resided there she had always recoiled from her childhood memories whenever they managed to push their way into her mind. Now, having no choice but to return to the place where she was tormented before even blossoming into womanhood, she felt sick with stress — but the fact that her love was making the trip by her side was a salve to the still-raw wounds that she had to reopen to cure the endless night. Coping with the stress induced headaches and upset stomachs was an easy enough feat so long as Athena was near.

Home, she had come to realise, was not four walls and a roof over one’s head, home was a beating heart and the unconditional love of the gentle natured mage at her side. No matter where they were or what they were doing, Athena was her home. Slight as she was there was nowhere Helena felt safer than wrapped in her embrace.

Perhaps the most surprising thing she had learned about herself was just how much she enjoyed being held, to the extent that if she went too long without snuggling up to the younger woman the same touch-starved feeling she had known her entire life before meeting her would start crawling across her skin once again. Before Athena had stumbled upon her amongst the dead trees that surrounded the Witch Queen’s castle she had never experienced the joys of such a simple form of affection, even in her childhood she could not recall her parents ever so much as wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders, never-mind hugging her...not that she would even have wanted them in her personal space that way. Cuddling was something special that only she and Athena shared, a form of intimacy that she had never given to anyone...that the Queen had not taken from her and her parents had not wanted, either.

Like most of the adults she had known in her childhood her parents had been nothing more than a pair of illiterate drunkards, who’d been far more interested in ale than raising her. The only time they had ever acknowledged her existence was when they were beating her for one reason or other, but then once her powers had emerged even they had become far too disgusted and afraid of her to get close enough to beat her...and became far drunker than they had been beforehand. Alcoholism and addiction to other substances were diseases that were especially rife in underprivileged areas, of both worlds, so it seemed. When someone was an addict they could go without feeling anything but drunk or stoned...still, when that was compared to poverty or to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, and depression, well...an addiction no longer seemed like such a bad thing to contend with. It looked like a very viable option, and Helena’s parents, like pretty much every single person she grew up around, fell into that trap time and again.

“Have you forgiven your adoptive parents for neglecting you?,” she whispered to Athena, who was resting her eyes with her back rested against the one tree in the centre of the clearing that had once been her only refuge from the horrors of ‘home’. She was the only one who understood what she was feeling, despite being raised an entire world away.

Grey eyes flickered open, from where Helena was sitting she could see the little flecks of blue that were woven through specific points in her irises, illuminated by the flickering glow of the fire. Her kindness somehow showed in her eyes, even whilst tired and still far frailer than normal from her recent ordeal her inexorably pure heart was conveyed through those intoxicating eyes. “Neglecting me, no. But they were sick and I know no one chooses to become addicted to anything...so I’ve forgiven them for that.”

“I do not think I can do the same.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to. You don’t owe them forgiveness, Helena.”

She nodded, moving so that her head was rested in the crook between Athena’s neck and shoulder and inhaling the scent of home in the hopes it would ease her heart some. “They were cruel to me, my love. My mother especially took pleasure in tormenting me. I...I remember waking up one morning as a girl of only eleven to find my dress stained with blood, she had not explained the menses to me so I believed myself to be dying. Even when I began to cry she laughed and did not explain or give me anything to soak up the bleeding. She...she left me to bleed freely into my dress and as it was the only one that I owned and already far too small from years of use I walked around like a pitiful little creature for days whilst others laughed. It took me more than two turns of the seasons to stop panicking every time I bled because she did not care enough to help me.”

Athena’s face contorted with pain, the way it always did when Helena opened up about just how horrible her parents had been to her. Unlike her mother, who had refused to comfort her or lift a finger to help her during her first episode of bleeding, Athena had always helped like it was second nature to do so — even showing her how to use the strange things called ‘tampons’ and the sticky pads in Chicago without making her feel like a burden or laughing at her for not instinctively knowing such things.

“Then when I figured out the bleeding would be a regular occurrence she beat me with a cane for it, because I had ruined her fun.” Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, but not because she was sad...because she was angry. She understood she did not deserve any of her mother’s cruelty, Athena had shown her that.

Warm lips grazed her hairline, as gentle and undemanding as ever, and the delicate arms wrapped around her seemed to tighten their hold. Wordless gestures, but somehow they said everything. The small hand caressing the back of her head and the other wrapped around her back like a gentle cradle made her heart swell and her limbs tingle from the sheer amount of love she felt coming from her fiancé — she knew she would never tire of feeling so secure in her position in another’s heart that she could actually feel how loved she was.

“You are so strong. So, so, so strong and miraculous. You deserved so much better than that...and even though I can’t take your pain away I can promise you that you’ll never have to suffer any of those indignities ever again. Never, ever again.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks, slowly and unashamed. Allowing them to fall was not weakness, and neither was letting her see them. With Athena she did not fear that she would be beaten or verbally torn into as the internal pain became something visible on the outside of her body. There would be no punishment waiting to greet her, no resentment or lingering anger that would last for weeks afterwards...she was safe and crying was allowed. Crying was okay.

When she closed her tear blurred eyes she could picture the little girl in the bloodstained dress that was so small and torn it barely hit her mid thighs, she had not even owned a pair of shoes and socks had been a luxury she had not been lucky enough to receive either. She remembered the ugly faces of her neighbours, most pitted and scarred from common illnesses the had not the money to treat and yellowing from the amount of ale they consumed. The whores and drunkards alike had laughed at her as she had limped around with the starving kitten she cared for in her arms, blood trailing down her bruised legs that matched the black eye her mother had given her, and her bare feet sinking into the gloopy dirt roads with every step. At the time she felt like she deserved it, as the bastard daughter of an unskilled couple disrespect was all she had ever known...and perhaps that is why the Witch Queen’s treatment had seemed so normal. The abuse becoming sexual as well as everything else she had suffered had not seemed so torturous at the beginning...as sickening as it was, in her naivety, she has believed it had felt like the natural progression of things.

She knew better now, though.

Laying there in the arms of the one person who had never made her feel like her existence was anything other than a blessing and being allowed to grieve was restorative. It felt almost as if deep wounds lining her soul were slowly being stitched back together by Athena’s gentle hands, as if the invisible weight that had been crushing her was finally being lifted off of her shoulders.

“I regret killing many people but I do not regret taking one solitary life here. Does that...does that make me a monster?,” she forced out between quiet sobs that were muffled against her neck.

“No, no it doesn’t.” She did not even flinch at the confession, her muscles did not stiffen and she did not recoil from her near-frantic clinging to her. Anyone else would have, she was sure. Anyone else would not even begin to be able to understand. “They were abusers, sweetheart,” Athena continued, her voice as gentle as ever. “Everyone who knew what your parents were doing to you but did nothing to help, everyone who joined in, they were all child abusers. You were just a little girl and they should have known better than to treat you the way that they did...what they did to you is on them, not you.”

“But I killed them, Athena.”

“I know, sweetheart, but you killed them when they surrounded you and started screaming and throwing things at you. You killed them in the midst of a panic attack that they induced. You might’ve gone there on her orders but you hesitated. You didn’t actually do anything until they triggered you.”

“I...I...I did not,” she breathed, eyes widening in awe. “Had I not lost control I do not think I would have had the strength to carry out her order, it was...an accident.”

“And what do we say about accidents?”

“That they happen to everyone, that we should learn from them and forgive ourselves, because life is too short to spend everyday dwelling on the past and hating ourselves for our mistakes,” she recited, word for word as Athena had told her. How someone so young could harbour so much divine wisdom, she could not even begin to understand. No matter the situation Athena always knew the right things to say, always knew how to get through to her and explain things in a way that she would be able to understand. Despite being five years older than her Helena felt like she were younger, as she was just discovering her own self awareness and truly learning the difference between right and wrong — having been denied those lessons for so long it was a steep mountain to climb and at times she felt like she were dangling from the edge with Athena being the only thing stopping her from tumbling to the bottom. She was always so patient with her, teaching amidst cuddles and soft words spoken between kisses...and the lessons always stuck without having to be carved into her, always.

They rested for a few hours, but sleep evaded both of their grasps. Somehow just laying in her lover’s arms and talking with her felt just as peaceful as sleeping did, perhaps it was due to the fact they had both wanted to escape the overcrowded encampment for days. Before they had left things had already descended to the point that different sicknesses were being passed around from person to person as easily as air entered the lungs, and tempers had been running high the way they so often did when so many people shared such close quarters — so even though it was not a pleasant excursion they were off on it felt like it may as well have been a vacation.

—

The cobblestoned road that lead to the village had once been a flurry of traffic between the human and demon domain, but as the years had passed nature had begun to reclaim itself. Weeds had begun to bloom between the cracking stones, with clumps of moss covering the indented wheel ruts that had been carved over time due to the sheer amount of travellers who had made use of the remote highway in the middle of the forest. Trees had fallen at various points along the road, left to rot where they had landed, and serving as obstacles that they had to climb over to get to their destination. One tree was so large that she had to levitate Athena over it as she was far too tiny to tackle it, even with a boost — when she was a child fallen trees would have been cleared away mere moments after they had hit the ground, the fact that they had been left there sent a sharp pang of guilt surging through her heart. With no demons and no one from her village left the road had been abandoned, left to crumble.

She kept a tight hold on Athena’s hand as they deviated from the main highway and onto the dirt road that lead down a steep hill into the valley where the village had once stood. The well beaten track was still visible, many generations of constant use before the highway had even been paved must have worn away the potential for the grass to reclaim itself.

“I do not know what we will find at the bottom of this hill,” she gulped. The worst part of her mind was trying to convince her she was leading Athena into a mass graveyard where human remains would lay decomposing as far as the eye could see. Having disassociated before fleeing the scene of the crime she could not for the life of her remember how it had looked, if there had even been any physical remains left once her magic had settled back into control. The last thing she wished was to unintentionally scar her for life by leading her blindly into a scene of utter carnage.

“You don’t have to know everything right now, babe. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“What....what if I lose control again? What if I am triggered by something and what if I hurt you?”

“You won’t,” Athena soothed, bringing their joined hands to her lips and kissing her knuckles as they walked. She was absolutely incorrigible, had she loved her any less it would have been infuriating. At first Helena had wondered if she was so pure that she was literally unable to see how dangerous she was, then she wondered if she did see it but chose to ignore the potential risks that being with her carried, but she had come to realise that it was only that Athena trusted her. She knew what she could do but it was not that she ignored it, it was that she had embraced it and believed that there could be goodness within the destruction. She believed in her so much that she came to believe in herself a little more, too.

Hand in hand the emerged from the forest sweeping the hillside and into the ruins of the village. At first glance there were thankfully no decaying human skulls scattered across the site, only the crumbling shells of scorched buildings, and an entire sea of wildflowers that had engulfed every inch of earth. The piss stained corners where bacchanals and streetwalkers had loitered were now concealed behind an array of beautiful bright colours in full bloom, even in the darkness. Absent of the suffocating smell of smokey hearths, animal manure, and the body odour of those who seldom bathed in the nearby river, it was almost refreshing. And in the absence of people whose conversation had relied more on volume than intelligence to deliver their point it nearly seemed peaceful.

“I do not know what I am supposed to be searching for, it is but a ruin.”

“It’s more than that. Look at these flowers growing from the ashes, new life blossoming from the old. It’s beautiful.”

She hummed in agreement, slowly walking down what she remembered to be the main street. Once, it had been lined with the few businesses the village had to offer; the baker, the seamstress, the blacksmith, the brothel, the tavern, and the cooper, along-with the stalls where fresh produce was sold and often went to waste as most people were too impoverished to afford it. When she lived there it had not been uncommon to witness people passing out in the middle of the street, in her youth she had made a game of trying to suss out if they were drunk or starving — in the absence of toys or friends she had found her fun in the oddest of places.

“Is that a dick graffitied onto that wall just there?!,” Athena spluttered, gesturing to her right. Her eyes widened by degrees, colour rushing into her cheeks the way that it always did when she was undeniably flustered.

“That would be the brothel, my love,” she snorted, not even attempting to hide her amusement. “Instead of funnelling whatever money we had into opening a school or training a healer the elders evidently thought it more important that people’s sexual desires were fulfilled...which was all well and good until sexually transmitted diseases became rampant throughout the population.”

“How did they treat them if there was no healer?”

“They did not. Whenever anyone became ill with anything our only option was to allow the illness to run its course, as most people believed alchemists and healers to be messengers of evil.” She scoffed. “I came down with the Sweating Sickness not long before I was exiled and had to go without any treatment at all...many believed it to be providence. My own father rejoiced in my sickness.”

“What a bastard,” Athena growled. “I’ve never wanted to punch two people in the face more than your parents.”

“You would have been far too tiny to reach their faces,” she teased.

“I’d jump.”

“Now that I would have loved to see.” Without a word of warning she scooped her up into her arms, wanting to indulge in the simple pleasure of having her close. “But I do not think those little fists could do much damage.”

Athena pouted, her eyes shining with mirth as she rolled them out of amusement. “You know if anyone else had to make fun of my height as much as you do you would literally curse them where they stood.”

“That is what best friends are for, is it not?,” she smirked.

“Damn right it is.” Athena gently kissed her lips, smiling against her as she wrapped her legs around her waist. 

As they continued on the journey through the ruins she found herself wondering what would have happened had the mage been born there, too, had they been raised side by side. She wondered what would have been different had she found her best friend, her soulmate at such a young age. Would the tree on the outskirts of the village have been their secret place? Would they have gone on adventures that lasted for days when their parents were too drunk to notice they were gone? Would she have fearlessly stood up to anyone who dared say anything about her magic the way that she so often did for her? Would she have proudly followed her into exile, throwing her middle finger in the air as they marched out of the village hand in hand? Would the Witch Queen even have been able to sink her claws into her if Athena had always been by her side? Or would she have sunken them into her too? 

“This was where I was born and lived with my parents,” she said, returning her love to her feet just outside what was left of the little shack of a place she had been forced to share with them. It had only been one room with another behind a poorly cut plank of rotting wood that was supposed to be a door where one could use the chamber pot without an audience. The whole thing had been less than half the size of the bedroom she shared with Athena in Wolfson Castle. The floor had been made of dirt, without so much as a thin layer of straw to cover it, and the walls the same dull grey stone as on the outside as they were too poor for any wallpapers...their windows had not even had glass panes on them as those too were a luxury that simply did not exist there. The hearth had given off a sickening smokey smell that made it difficult to breathe inside, especially during the warmer months...even during the winter when snow blanketed the ground it often became unbearably warm inside.

“Helena,” Athena gasped, gingerly stepping over what had once been the doorway.

Her eyes remained focused on the little corner where she had fallen asleep on the floor every night, close to the door incase she needed to run if her parents became violent towards her or to each other, and as far away from their bed as she could be without actually being outside. The cane that her mother had used to discipline her had stood there, too, propped against the wall and looming over and reminding her of her place her as she slept.

“I came here to drain the life from this place once again but I...I do not think I can. I am unsure of how to proceed.”

“I don’t think Ishara meant for you to literally ‘gain strength’ by using your draining powers here, babe. I think she meant it more figuratively, like a making peace with your past kind thing.”

“How do I do that? I cannot forgive anyone whose life I took here, not yet. Not when I am still in the process of understanding just how cruelly they really treated me, not when I cannot yet understand how people could have it in them to treat an innocent child that way. Must the world remain engulfed in this darkness until I find it within my heart to forgive them?! Must my shame be displayed so plainly for all to witness until that day?! I did not ask for this! She did this to me! They did this to me! I do not want it, Athena! I do not want this power!” Magic crackled across the surface of her skin like little bolts of lightening as the emotions took hold, electric blue eyes becoming empty voids of obsidian as puffs of magic seeped through her pupils and dissipated into the air. With no intent behind it the sparks of blue and little clouds of black just vanished as soon as they left her body.

“Keep yelling babe, get it all out. Yell, scream, cry, hell even break down what remains of this place...just get it out.” Athena took her hand, ignoring the power that was now pouring out of Helena’s body.

“W-what?”

“I won’t be upset with you after and there is no one else around to hear you. Vent all of this frustration out however you need to, be as loud or destructive as you need to be. Just get it all out.”

It had never occurred to her that shouting into thin air might be a good therapeutic technique, that it would somehow calm her down...but it did. She paced angrily around what was left of her childhood home and yelled at no one in particular about every little thing that was even mildly upsetting her. Athena did not interrupt or offer any words of wisdom, perhaps she knew that she could not assuage her pain or fix her problems for her despite how much she knew she wanted to. Just having her quiet presence there, listening to every word without judgement was a comfort. 

The more she yelled the more her magic faded away, seeping back into her blood where it belonged and where it could not cause harm. With each thud of her heart against her chest and each time her foot slammed into the grass she felt a release, years worth of anger and resentment flowing out of her without anyone being harmed or anything being destroyed in the process. Instead of it being released like a violent hurricane it felt more like gusts of wind, strong yet utterly benign. She yelled until her throat stung and her lungs burned, marching around and around until she became dizzy and fell to her knees at her lover’s side on the overgrown grass, red faced and panting.

“That was cathartic,” she murmured, breathily.

“I am so fucking proud of you.” The admission startled her, as she could not think of one single thing she had done to have earned her pride. Sensing this, Athena took her hand in hers and brought it to rest on her lap, tracing soothing little circles around her knuckles with the pad of her thumb. “You not only just said that you were not to blame for any of the things other people did to you without me urging you to at least five times in a row, but you listed all the things that you deserve as well. Helena, when I met you you didn’t know what you deserved...you hated yourself so much that any kindness or affection made you uncomfortable. You’ve come so far.”

“But yet the sun has not risen yet,” she whispered.

“‘Yet’, you just said it yourself. It hasn’t risen yet...but it will. I promise it will. We’ll figure it out together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after the song ‘Feels Like Home’ by Edwina Hayes ❤️


	5. Dusk Till Dawn

“If anyone else had to do that to me you would whip out your swords and behead them before they even knew what had hit them.” Athena was trying and failing to hide her amusement, attempting to pout her lips as they quivered and threatened to break into a smile seemingly of their own accord. A fierce blush tinted her cheeks and a twinkle that put the moon’s reflection upon a calm sea to shame shone through the crystalline eyes that were focused on her.

The mage was right, Helena would certainly not tolerate anyone patting the top of her head as a wordless way of teasing her for being short, playful or not. However, she would likely best any other who dared irritate her love in hand-to-hand combat before resorting to actually beheading them.

Whilst being fed a bite of the bland tasting dry pine bark bread that they were sharing from their provisions, she smirked. They were seated amongst the wildflowers with their backs rested against what was left of the north facing wall of her childhood home, thigh to thigh with one of her arms casually looped around Athena’s delicate shoulders — picnicking in the grass like the more well cared for children’s parents had done with them for every meal whenever the weather was agreeable in her youth.

“What can I say, I enjoy ‘messing with you’,” she replied, the foreign phrase sliding of her tongue slowly but delightfully easily. Warmth radiated through her entire body, awashing her limbs in a lightness so profound that it seemed to ease away the aches that always plagued them, and banishing every bad thought from her mind. Her cheeks hurt, though, but it was a good pain — like the kind one got when pulling a thorn from their foot or jumping into a body of water on a warm day — a pain that existed only because she was smiling so much.

Having never had a relationship where inside jokes and the ability to be so silly that it was almost childish were staples, Helena had come to adore the little moments where she could experience that mirth. It was like she was experiencing the unadulterated joys of childhood, adolescence, and young maidenhood every time she was able to laugh or enjoy herself. She might have been decades behind every other thirty-something in that regard, but she did not care as figuring out her sense of humour was far too pleasurable for her to care about playing catch-up.

“One of these days I’m gonna ask Altea to make me a potion that’ll make me grow to be five inches taller than you, then I’m just gonna follow you around and pat you on the head whilst using your own short jokes against you,” Athena huffed, as Helena brought her palm down onto the crown of her head once more.

“You would finally know what the weather is like up here and that fact alone would make you far too excitable to remember any of my stellar jokes,” she smiled, brushing a stray strand of raven hair out of the younger woman’s face.

Athena poked her tongue out between her lips before taking a small bite out of the shared piece of bread. Sitting there like that with her was the most blissful moment she had ever had in her home village, and she was definitely the happiest she had ever been there. They were merely taking a rest to get the weight off of their feet, refuelling before they looked around once more before beginning their journey back to the Capital, but somehow she felt so content that the war may as well have already been won. Despite the fact they were both tired and dirty, and the world still engulfed in darkness, things felt good and her mind felt clear. The droning chorus of voices that echoed inside her head at all times was unusally quiet, that in itself was nothing short of a miracle — it was as if the peace that she felt was too light for them to tolerate and they had shrunken away from it, cowering in the dark corner that they resided in as bliss overcame her.

No matter how much she wanted to bask in peace with Athena, she knew she could not allow herself to dally for too long. One day they would have all the time in the world to picnic and joke, one day soon, she told herself — figuring that if she said it enough times she might just come to believe herself. 

After eating and rehydrating they circled the village once more, hand-in-hand, quietly searching for anything that might make their excursion more fruitful...but there was nothing left. They sifted through every building shell still standing, dug through piles of petrified wood and crumbling stone to find nothing but layers of dirt and dust beneath them. Every possession, every sign that people’s entire unremarkable lives had been lived there for generations was gone. Nothing remained of the drunks or whores, or the bastard children who had once romped in the streets and found joy in the absolute nothingness of the village in its heyday. 

Absolutely nothing but ash.

“Babe, I found something!,” Athena practically squealed with delight. She was on her knees digging through what was left of the charred planks of redwood that had once been her parent’s bed frame, holding a dusty black leather bound book that Helena would have recognised anywhere. 

The handwritten book had once been her only possession, given to her by a kindly demon merchant who had heard that her powers had emerged. Knowing that it would have been taken from her by any who saw it she had hidden it far beneath her parents bed in a small hole she had dug with her bare hands in the dirt floor, because that was the only place neither of them would have found it. The book had not only taught her magic, but had taught her to read and to write, and had been like a friend to her when she had no other companions who were not frightened of her.

“The Infernal Grimoire, by Carreau,” the American read aloud, brushing her fingertips across the demonic letters embossed into the leather before she handed it to her.

“You can read that?”

“I guess? Can’t you?”

She shook her head whilst studying the odd characters that she had often become frustrated by as a child. They looked more like little drawings than letters, and were nothing like the modern-day demonic alphabet that she had learned under the scholar kidnapped by the Witch Queen. “It’s contents are written in my native language, despite its title being written like this.” She opened to a random page to show her the cursive inking and detailed diagrams alongside the messy scrawlings of a semi-illiterate child teaching herself to write and read in charcoal that lined the margins. 

“I have no idea what this says, so I definitely haven’t gained literacy superpowers...but I can read the letters on the cover as if I’ve known the language my entire life.” She sounded merely contemplative, not at all as worried as she looked. Her furrowed brow and the fact she was biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood gave away her emotions. 

She turned to the very front page of the book, remembering that it contained the only words handwritten in the demon language. “Can you read this?”

“My dearest Mirren, may this manuscript breach the bounds of incomparable distance and time to find its way to you. May this knowledge aid you in meeting your destiny. Your ever loving teacher, protector, and friend, Carreau.” She lightly brushed her fingers over the complex sequence of letters, her eyes remaining locked onto them even after she was done reading. “Who is Mirren?”

“I do not know.” The symbols that Athena had just read were so complex that she could not even begin to decode them, strangely, written in a circle much the same way casting circles were explained within the book. She cleared her throat and continued, “I cannot remember the scholar mentioning the name, but I can vaguely remember Carreau...he was either a prince or some form of minor nobility. Perhaps Ishara or Saerys may know who Mirren was.”

Athena cleared her throat and nodded, but was clearly wrapped up in her thoughts. She stayed silent for a few moments, just staring at the mandala-like note. “I don’t know what my birth name was. The, um, the doctors at the hospital I was taken to when I was found wandering the streets as a toddler named me Athena, after the goddess of war and wisdom because they thought I was a fighter or something. What if I’m Mirren?”

“Then this book has indeed found you as Carreau intended,” she said, gently.

“I mean, it’s probably wishful thinking...I can’t be. I’m not a demon, have no magic, and can’t even read the writing on the inside.”

“But yet you can read and speak this dead language, and are the only one able to do so. When you spoke it during your fever none of us could understand a word of what you were saying...which was particularly distressing to witness as you were incredibly upset.”

Athena nodded, lips tightening into a thin line and brow furrowing. “Did you ever hear anyone else talking it? Like, we’re really close to where the demon border used to be...right?”

“We are, but I had never heard the unique dialect. Many of the merchants who passed through were from all over the domain, so many of the domain’s dialects are familiar to the ear, but I had never heard the one you spoke in. Only a few words were recognisable enough for us to figure out it was in fact demonic that you were speaking.” 

She did not ask any more questions, falling into a contemplative silence as they sat back down on the grass to study the books contents before making their journey back to camp. Cocooned by the stars that lined her cloak, she read aloud so Athena could understand what it was they were looking at, and explained the complex diagrams as best she could. 

As a child she had not understood just how rare the magic within the leather bound pages was, nor had she the ability to master the majority of it. Ancient spells that allowed one to do everything from bending the weather to their will, to building a device called a ‘Star Gate’ that would capture a caster’s energy and hold open a portal for an unlimited amount of time with no drain to the caster themselves. As a child she had been more interested in the spells that would make her invisible or allow her to read another’s mind, as learning spells that would benefit her day to day life had seemed like the more pragmatic approach to her education. Now, though, the defensive spells and deadly curses seemed far more beneficial than anything else...and as the magic was so ancient the Witch Queen would not know how to defend against it.

“A fertility rite,” she said, studying the page right in the middle of the book. “This one, it— it allows for same sex couples to conceive a child that is half each of them. All that is required is locks of hair, a healthy and willing womb, a full moon, a few common potion ingredients, and runes. Fascinating.”

“That’s certainly pretty interesting,” Athena mused, her eyes scanning her face as if searching for the answer to the question that was on both of their minds. “Do you, um, like, uh, you know, do you...”

“Do I want children?” It was hard not to giggle at how adorably flustered she was as she nodded her head in response. “I...I suppose I have not ever considered that I would ever find peace enough to consider the notion of motherhood as a feasible option for my future. I like children well enough, although I do not know what sort of mother I would be...as I hardly had the best example to follow. What about you?”

“I’ve never really thought about it much either. I used to babysit kids when I was a teenager and I always had fun doing that, I like spending time with kids more than most adults because they keep it simple...you know?” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears and continued, “we can definitely talk about it more once the war is done and we know what our plan is, if you want. My mom used to dump me at a strip mall Chuck E Cheese and go get drunk at the bar next door, then she’d forget where she’d left me...like, seriously, the bitch reported me missing three times and told the cops I’d run away when I was really just playing arcade games with money on a string! Neither of us had good moms but I guess that taught us what not to do...so, for what it’s worth, I think we’d be good parents because we both know what it’s like to feel alone and unloved. No child of ours would ever feel that way.”

“I do not think that I ever want to meet your parents because I really might behead them for treating you that way,” she sighed, resting the side of her head against Athena’s. “If we ever have children we must do better. We will do better.”

“Damn right we will.”

—

“I think that we should keep it between ourselves that you can read demonic as well as speak it.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, so quiet and unlike herself that it was almost drowned out by the sound of their footsteps padding along the darkened dirt road back to the siege. She could have cast a portal there right from the doorstep of her childhood home, but she had not and Athena had not asked her to, instead just walking along silently beside her whilst lost in her own thoughts.

“What? Why?”

“Because had that information to leak out of our encampment and make its way to the Witch Queen the target on your back would only increase in size. She has always had an interest in the ancient breed of the demonic people, so she would capture you and torture you into translating the copious records and spell books she has in her castle...and that for you would be a fate worse than dying.”

Athena’s face visibly palled and she nodded, tightly. “But won’t Ishara know?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not...but you must humour me. I beg you not to speak a word of this until after she has fallen. The ignorance of others is the only way I can promise to protect you from what I know she would set out to do to you should this information reach her.”

“I’m....I’m really the only one who can read this, huh?”

“Yes. Scholars have studied the strange symbols for centuries, Athena, with no luck. There is no observable pattern or key, other than the fact each ancient document is written in a circle. After the war such a skill may come in handy...but during it only puts you in grave danger. Speaking of this would be a fatal mistake, my love, so you must not. Not to anyone else, do you understand?”

Athena nodded again, gently tracing the front cover of the grimoire with her fingertips. “Vas s’athé mrajilafi.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I think it means ‘your wish is my command’. I think...I’m not entirely sure. I could just have said something really rude for all I know but something in me is pretty sure it means ‘your wish is my command’,” Athena puzzled. “I don’t know how I know that...since waking up from my coma I just, um, I just do. Like something clicked into place when I was unconscious, a part of myself that I didn’t know was missing until now. I definitely didn’t hit my head when I fell, did I?”

“No, why do you ask? Is your head paining you?”

“Because I...I am seeing things, memories, I think, that I didn’t even know that I had. Or maybe I’m just letting the whole ‘you might be a lost demon princess’ thing go to my head.”

“I do not think that you are letting this go to your head, my love. What is it that you think that you remember?”

“A marble castle on a cliff by the sea, with dragons flying across the sky all around it. It’s big and airy, and it’s so warm that the windows don’t even have glass on them so that the rooms can be filled with as much fresh sea air as possible. There are young boys and we are running through the halls, but one has me on his shoulders because I’m too little to keep up. Everyone we pass by is wearing flowy outfits and no shoes, and have the most ornate hairstyles I have ever seen...but they’re clearly all demons.” She took a deep shaky breath and then cleared her throat, pausing for a moment to collect herself. “We keep running through a hallway that is right on the edge of the cliff, on one side it is all huge open archways with sheer white curtains that billow in the breeze and on the other there are huge ass murals that look sort of like star charts. When I look over my shoulder a man with silver hair, dark skin, and eyes like Saerys’ is chasing us, yelling at us because we ran out on our studies...but the boys keep running, carrying me with them. The one carrying me looks up and says ‘Aena ma’ztho chek choyomaroon’...little dragon we must fly away.”

“You...you are not making that up,” she gulped, stopping short and tightening her grip around her petite wrist. “I have never told you of the isles in the eastern sea, just off the coast of the demonic domain....where...where the Grand Duke Astaroth lived and ruled from in ancient times. It is but a ruin now, abandoned many ages ago during the fall of the old empire...but parts of the castle is still standing. I have walked what is left of that very hallway...saw those very same stars peeling from eroded walls.”

“You’ve been?” Grey, tear filled eyes widened and Athena looked as if she could not decide whether to panic or get excited, so she was left in limbo on the anxious line between both. Practically twitching with the intensity of her emotions.

“She ordered me to investigate the ancient lands and bring back anything that I found.”

“What did you find?”

“I...I told her I found nothing but that was a lie. I found plenty, but could not stand to take yet another thing and bring it to ruin. A room that looked to be a shrine of sorts stands out in my memories, still in near perfect condition. On the wall there was painted images of a girl that I thought resembled the Witch Queen but now...now I am just realising was probably you. In each of the paintings she appeared at a different age, as a baby, as a young girl, and as a young woman...and in every one she was wearing the same woven gold headband across her forehead and white dress.” She knelt down on the dirt road and grabbed a stick poking out from an overgrown bush, then did her best to recreate the symbols she remembered being written above the paintings. Her hand was trembling too much for them to be perfect, but Athena was watching with rapt attention and trembling just as much as she was. 

“Mirren; gentleness, loveliness, delicateness, grace. The one born to face the shadows, the wanderer who shall never be lost, the old who shall not wither, amidst the storm she shall return upon the siren call of her bound soul, renewed by the broken and renewer of the lost, the crown-less queen shall rise from the flames.” Athena slowly sank to her knees beside her, her eyes glistening with unspent tears in the darkness. “Babe, I need to go to this castle. I...I think our answer is there. The cure to the darkness, the answer to who I am and what part I play in all of this...I need to go.”

“Ishara was incredibly insistent we take more than a few days worth of supplies, perhaps she knew we would find the book and it would nudge us in that direction,” she gulped. They were squeezing each other’s hands so tightly that she would not be at all surprised to find matching finger shaped bruises left behind, each of them trembling and terrified. “I...I can cast portal there from the coastline of the demonic domain. The eastern sea is incredibly vast, far too vast for me to cross from here in one jump.”

“Then let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Dusk Till Dawn’ by Amanda Yang ❤️


	6. Born To Be Yours

Helena was used to Athena’s calm, almost aloof demeanour in situations that would stir panic attacks in even the most laid back individuals. It was like she harboured some sort of divine knowledge that no one else could access so freely, something within her that told her everything would be alright. Like disassociating without the mental anguish, memory loss, and confusion that followed. Rare was the moment where she became truly overwhelmed with her emotions the way most did so freely.

The sorceress knew her better than any other did, but her strange behaviour never ceased intriguing her. Otherworldly, so it were. More like a deity than a living breathing woman with an emotional depth so vast that it rivalled the very ocean itself. She knew she was experiencing considerable amounts of anguish, but yet her face remained settled in an almost serene looking smile as they walked hand-in-hand along the empty beach on the deserted island in the middle of the Eastern Sea.

The island itself was made up of numerous perfect circles, with canals of salt water between each. Whilst no expert on land formations, she knew that there was no way such an island could have been formed naturally...it was just too perfect, too bizarre. The castle was on the innermost part of the island, the next ring on land across a small stretch of calm water held a village so large it rivalled the Capital in beauty and in size, the next held miles and miles of still-lush and arable farm land, and the next had mountains, beach, and thick jungle but also the remnants of docks far larger than the ones she had witnessed in the Capital — whatever ships they had been built for must have been truly monstrous in size. It was like being in a different world all together.

Ahead of them the crumbling castle of demonic royal family on the highest point of the island that towered up above them on top of white chalky cliffs; the shimmery gold sand glistened, with brightly coloured rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking endlessly on the beach. Even in the darkness the beach on the far side of the village they had emerged from the portal on was far more beautiful than any Helena had ever witnessed. 

“The island is cloaked, isn’t it?,” Athena asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, my love. Generations ago the first council of the domains came together and cloaked the island in order to protect the many artefacts and historical monuments that remain here. As we do not know much of your family’s empire they had hoped that scholars would one day be able to piece together a correct account of the history of this place, so they cloaked it to protect it from bandits and aspiring explorers,” she replied. “Now, to most people, the very existence of this place is a mere myth. I only knew of its location due to the scholar’s noble bloodline, his family had been tasked with protecting the island’s borders.”

Despite how old the ruins were the island was still in a frightfully good state, looking more like it had only been abandoned for a century or so as opposed to more than a thousand years. Not far from the beach were limestone paved streets that had barely been reclaimed by mother nature, lined with gorgeous polished marble mansions, with flat roofs and golden statues of the old gods still lining the stairs leading towards opulent entryways. Cracked ornate fountains carved with the family’s royal insignia — a unicorn and a dragon perched on either side of a rose — that were big enough for many people to swim in were filled with years worth of dead leaves. Eastern redbud trees, clearly many thousands of years old judging by the widths of their twisting trunks and sprawling wide branches lined most of the beautiful streets of the village, their bright pink flowers still in full bloom despite having no one to witness their beauty. There were even a few almost entirely moth eaten buntings still hanging from the shells of stores and cafes, the rich dyes mostly faded from the fabric entirely.

It was a stark contrast to her own home village, which had not looked anywhere near as beautiful in its heyday as the ruins of Athena’s home look many ages after the bloody fall of her family’s empire. From what little she knew of the ancients, she knew that they had been far more intelligent than most people gave them credit for. How people could build such a masterpiece of a village that rivalled the beauty of the Capital so long ago without modern construction equipment, without spells that had supposedly only been manifested a few hundred years prior, without the knowledge that people had now...she could not fathom. Technology must have been lost over the years, the grimoire proved that much conclusively.

The ancient society Athena’s family had ruled over, like that of the its more well documented counterparts in Eclaciel, emerged all at once and fully formed. The mind boggling short period of transition from primitive to advanced society appeared to have been so short that it made no kind of logical historical sense. Technological skills that should have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve were brought into use almost overnight — and with no apparent antecedents whatever. For example, remains from before her family rose to power showed absolutely no trace of writing. Soon after that date, quite suddenly and inexplicably, the language familiar from so many of the ruins and artefacts of the ancients began to appear in a complete and perfect state. Far from being mere pictures of objects or actions, this written language was complex and structured at the outset, with signs that represented sounds only and a detailed system of numerical symbols. Even the very earliest letters and numbers were stylised and conventionalised; and it was clear that an advanced cursive script was in common usage by the time Athena had been born.

“Sphinxes,” Athena gasped, stopping at the bottom of the hill that led up towards the castle. On either side of the wide road stood two odd looking statues, monstrous in size, with the face of a man, body of a cat of some sort, and an odd looking headdress. The white marble was hidden under a sheen of grime, the finer painted details eroded over the years, but they were still absolutely magnificent.

“Do you recall these?”

“I...no...but it’s weird. In my word— I mean, in the world I was raised, um, the ancient Egyptians had a monument just like these. It’s not much more than a crumbling clump of bricks now, and we still don’t know what it was for, but it always fascinated me.” Almost timidly, Athena reached out and pressed her hand delicately against the marble, gazing up at the statue that had to be as tall as the building she lived in in Chicago...perhaps even taller. “Weird that we would have them here, too.”

“There are many similarities between the worlds that offer no rational explanation,” she murmured, reaching out and affectionately brushing a strand of raven hair out of her face for her.

“The architecture is definitely more resemblant to the ancient greek and roman era, but these...these look identical to how the sphinx in Egypt supposedly looked before it was overtaken by the desert.” Gloriously thick eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she brushed away some of the dirt on the marble using her sleeve. Hidden away beneath it were more of the odd letters, carved in a circle in distinctly childish handwriting, wobbly and misshapen compared to the letters written in the grimoire. 

“Fuck,” Athena cursed, below her breath.

“What does it say? I recognise your birth name written just there.” Tentatively, she pointed to the one familiar word, but being mindful not to say it aloud to avoid making Athena uncomfortable.

“Orias, Asura, Erlik, Grigori, Phenex, Sitri, Ronové, and Mirren were here at midnight, proving to mother that playing outdoors in the darkness is not dangerous so long as the dragons are near.” Her brothers, Helena realised. Those were their names. She watched Athena trace the childish scrawling with the tip of her finger, that serene calmness that she knew unsettled some people never fading away. Even as she repeated their names below her breath, committing them to memory, she was calm. 

Had Lennox’s cultists who still lived and breathed to find out the otherworldly woman was in fact the lost demon princess, she was certain an entirely new cult of pests would begin to form entirely absent of Athena’s consent. The fact that she had grown up in another world was common knowledge that automatically made everyone observe her every move and hang on her every word, her limitless compassion for others and kind heart that had yet to be calloused by the horrors of war only making her more of an oddity. Had anyone outside of their circle of friends to find out the truth protecting her from the weak minded masses who viewed the wretch wearing her love’s face as a living god may be impossible — as even though Athena had no magic, her broken memories, advanced age despite her body being that of a young woman, and ability to decode the secrets of the most intriguing points in history, would automatically elevate her to a living deity in the eyes of the pea-brained and feebleminded.

“Are you well, my love? If you need to stop for a moment to process finding out their names then I understand. Or if you need to cry. Or grieve.”

“I’m alright, babe. I’ve always thought of death kind of like going into another room in a house, inevitably connected with life. You don’t scream and cry when someone goes into another room for a minute, to me dying has always been sort of like that. There’s no question of life and death in the grand scheme of immortality. Nobody is ever lost to me.” Athena ran her hand through her hair, turning to her with a smile. “A mind that dwells in the past builds a prison it can’t escape from. As a kid, when my mom was sober enough to hold a coherent conversation with me, she used to say, ‘control your mind, or it will control you, and you will never break through the walls it builds.’ Insightful, right? I think it applies right now, though.”

The sorceress blinked, feeling her jaw dropping but being entirely unable to stop it. She often stunned her to silence without really meaning to, saying the most fantastic things so casually.

“I sounded like nut just there, didn’t I?”

“I...no. It is strange because you often say disarming things like that, revealing your soul’s true age, but you will perhaps more often blurt out the wittiest things that make you seem so much younger.” She could not help but giggle, all the complexities and paradoxes of her beloved swirling through her mind at lightening speed. What a strange one she was, but she absolutely adored knowing every facet of her the way she did. The weird. The wonderful. She loved all of her.

Athena practically lunged into her arms in response, giving her a tight and playful hug. She always tried to scoop her up and spin her in a circle, as she did to her, but her muscularly deficient arms were not strong enough to lift Helena’s almost six foot and solid muscle frame even an inch from the ground...which always made them both laugh.

“I’m doing it! Babe! I’m— you’re levitating yourself, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but you are very cute when you are excited, so pay that no mind.”

When the younger woman smiled up at her she could not help but be overwhelmed with joy. It was that sweet smile that was reserved only for her, that continually made her heart flutter every time she saw it. Nobody had ever looked at her that way, almost like she was the sun, before Athena had come along. It never stopped making her happy each time that smile was directed her way.

“I love you,” Athena beamed, returning her to her feet.

“As I love you, endlessly.” She spontaneously pressed a kiss on top of her head, pulling her in for another hug before she could pull away.

They had decided that upon their arrival on the island the one thing to do was search for Carreau’s study, theorising that it was where they would find their answers. Upon her visit to the island a decade prior she could not recall ever coming across such a room in the palace or any of the buildings that made up the village that she had wandered through. Whilst the island itself was not huge it had once housed the richest of the rich and royalty at play, so each home was obscenely large when compared to the average cottage everyday people lived in elsewhere. Searching the entirety of the island for hidden documents and manuscripts could potentially take months, and that was assuming it had not been hidden with some ancient spell that she had not the faintest idea how to detect or counter.

Athena, seemed so perplexed by the ‘Sphinxes’ that she could not move on to continue upon their quest. They circled each statue, looping around continually as she studied every inch of them, their view lit by a softly glowing ball of light she had summoned between her palms.

“I wrote a paper in college about a conspiracy theory that exists about the Sphinx in my wo— the other world,” she said, finally, breathing deeply as the ground to a halt. “Apparently there is a hall of records that exists under the paw of the statue, the entrance hidden and governments hiding it from people. It’s probably stupid for me to be hanging onto this but I— you said that you didn’t find anything the last time, right? I’m just being pragmatic here...like...what if there is something here?”

“Perhaps there is a spell in the grimoire that may aid us in figuring that out, as there are no obvious doors that we have seen as of yet and we have circled three times.” 

The leather bound book was safe in their bag, so she pulled it out and began to search it as Athena continued to inspect the monuments. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her meticulously scrutinising every brick that was not too high for her to see, looking for more carved words or weaknesses in the marble that may indicate a concealed passageway. The sorceress mentally noted each spell or invention that she passed by, folding down the corners of pages that she wished to study further; the star gate, the fertility rite, aqueducts, a sleeping curse, different poisons, a potion that offered immunity from said poisons, an insanity curse, a spell that allowed one to read the mind of others along with a ritual that made the temporary gift permanent, different sex magics that could be used in a number of different rites and rituals, ancient runes, energy conductors, and a spell that allowed one to control the actions of others.

“There is something that may work, but I will only do so with your full consent as it would...take away the privacy guarding your own thoughts—“

“You wanna read my mind?,” Athena smiled, kneeling down beside her on the path.

“You do not seem at all perturbed by the thought of me snooping through your subconscious mind for memories that you do not even realise that you have,” she laughed, nervously. 

“I’m not. I trust you.”

“I do not know if the spell will cause you pain and if I lose control of myself—“

“Helena, I trust you,” Athena interjected, squeezing her hand. “Even if the spell itself gives me a headache I won’t be mad at you, I won’t blame you, because I know you’d never intentionally hurt me. Your magic is incredible and beautiful, and I’m not scared of it. Also, for the record, there’s no one else I’d want inside my head. I trust you.”

Helena smiled, taking a moment to process the weight of what she had said before effortlessly pulling her onto her lap and kissing the tip of her nose. “If you wish for me to stop you need only say so. If it is uncomfortable please do not endure it, I could not live with myself if I had to hurt you.”

“I trust you.”

She took Athena’s face in her hands and rubbed soothing circles with her thumbs around her temples, chanting the words written on the page quietly as she rested her brow against hers. As her magic flowed through her fingers her love did not so much as flinch or wince away, continuing to gently stroke her knuckles.

As she closed her eyes she saw Athena as a toddler. Raven hair in untamed childish ringlets around her squishy face and grey eyes so big and enrapturing that even then they had looked like they belonged to someone far older. She was wearing a white flowy dress and had bare feet, gold jewellery that looked like dragons carved out of the precious metal and encrusted with bright gemstones decorating her little ankles and upper arms, matching the ornate crown around her head that looked like it was made of golden unicorn horns of all different sizes. The people around her, her brothers presumably, were not dressed anywhere nearly as ostentatiously as she was and all had the classic pointy ears one expected a person of such a noble demonic bloodline to harbour.

She watched the memory play out, seeing a young Athena toddling down the hill — towards the very spot where they were sitting — by herself as her brothers ran ahead, a blood red rose held between her little hands. Dragons flew overhead, all different colours and sizes, circling the island. Behind the toddler an entourage of at least twenty people followed, knights in suits of golden armour and holding onto all sorts of ancient weapons she had never witnessed before, ladies in waiting in pastel coloured chiffon dresses, and a nanny who looked distinctly proud of the little girl as she skipped ahead, seemingly oblivious to the servants at her beck and call. 

Helena swallowed, thickly, knowing that what she was seeing could not have been too long before she was sent away. She seemed so happy, so carefree, exactly how a little girl should be...and knowing that her childhood after such events had held such little happiness it only hurt her heart.

In the memory, she watched as people dressed in ordinary clothes fell to their knees as the little girl passed by, kissing the very ground she walked on. The soldiers around her drew their weapons, warning them to not even consider approaching her, but never touching her themselves, never pulling her away from the crowds of people the way one would expect caregivers to do to a young child about to lose themselves amongst the chaos of a bustling village. Everything seemed to stop at the child’s presence, merchants and peasants alike all vying to get a glimpse of her and completely ignoring the young princes as they ran ahead.

The man Athena had mentioned witnessing in her dreams with dark skin and mismatched eyes like Saerys met her at the bottom of the hill, dropping to his knees and lowering his entire body to the ground so that his head was lower than hers until Athena offered him the rose. She saw him slip it into the pocket of his shirt and then rise to his feet, seemingly been granted permission to scoop her into his arms and begin walking towards the Sphinx to the left of them.

The large statue, in its heyday, was polished to such perfection that it was almost reflecting the setting sun. The now chipped paint around the strange headdress and facial features of the creature was so bright she had never seen hues like it in either of the castles she had lived in herself. Shades of purple, gold, red, teals, and yellows standing out against the glistening white marble, more dreamlike than anything else. As Athena had theorised there was indeed an entrance between the paws of the creature, a ramp made of solid gold leading beneath it lined with floating torches to light the way.

“I do not understand what is being said, my love. Can you translate?,” she whispered, keeping her eyes closed as the most adorable baby voice began speaking in a language she only wished was familiar to her ear. Even as a child her love’s voice was the most precious sound, and even as a child she furrowed her brow when curious and rolled her eyes like her life depended on it.

“Blood magic,” Athena gulped. “Its Carreau we’re seeing. I’m asking him why the ramp disappears at night, he says that only my blood can reveal it...that’s why I was forced to blood-let every morning. That ordinary people aren’t allowed to enter without me. I’m asking him why....he...he...”

“Athena?”

“‘Her royal highness will understand such matters many moons from now when the information is most vital to her. It is the will of the gods that you live a long enough life to meet the soul that has been bound with yours for many lifetimes, the wealth of information in this library has been compiled over the centuries but is for the two of you alone. I can only pray that you will use it well, my dear one. Whilst it shall pain us to let you go, letting go means to come to the realisation that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny. Whilst everything is written in the stars, nothing is, too. Not these stars, not any others’,” Athena replied, slowly, as the image fizzled out and the magic sparkling at Helena’s fingertips faded.

When she leaned back enough to look at her love, she was pale, but not outwardly as panicked or confused as she had expected her to be...as Helena felt, herself. She did not know what to make of what she had just witnessed, of what Athena had just said. 

“Well he was a cryptic little fucker, wasn’t he?,” Athena whispered, brow furrowed the very same way she had just witnessed her do as a child. It was a familiar gesture, one that she had witnessed time and again whenever the mage was contemplating something, one that she took comfort in. “Everything...nothing...would it have killed him to just say what he meant?! Like, the fuck?”

“You were sent away so you could live long enough to meet me...”

“And I’m glad that I was. Don’t you ever get that twisted, okay? The decision that someone else made to send me to Chicago before you were born wasn’t your fault, and I’m actually really thankful that I got to go there and wait until it was time for me to find you. Yeah, it sucked and I was miserable, but everyday since coming home and meeting you I’ve been the happiest that I’ve ever been in my entire life. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d do it all over again the exact same way if it meant being here in your arms right now.”

Helena smiled, her initial reaction to become ridden with guilt being soothed before even being allowed to take root. Athena knew her, knew how her mind worked and how easily even the most irrational guilt could transform into something blinding and all consuming. She was always quick about nipping it in the bud, about making exactly what she was thinking and feeling explicitly clear to her.

When one least expects it, life sets us a challenge to test their courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there would be no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that they are not yet ready. Nothing stands still - everything is being born, growing, dying - the very instant a thing reaches its height, it begins to decline - the law of rhythm is in constant operations. So the challenge would not wait, Helena had learned. Life does not look back nor pause, one must simply tackle it head on with courage...which, she had learned over and over again everyday, was not as innate as she had once believed it to be, it was simply doing what was required in any given moment.

“Its weird, because in my dreams I’ve been seeing this place fall. Do...do you think there will be documents about that in the hall of records?”

“Perhaps so, if our friend Carreau had time to document it.” She sighed, shakily, “what is it that you are seeing exactly?”

“Just...more war. People attack whatever is different, anything they don’t understand, anything that might change world, our environment, reduce our chances of survival. Racism, class warfare, sexism, east versus west, north and south, capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorships, they’re all different faces of the same war: the war for an end to our differences. It’s always the same war, over and over. Only the names of the dead change. It’s always about one thing: which group of rich people get to divvy up the spoils and claim ultimate power...in our pursuit for the ultimate knowledge, the technologies we created eventually enslaved us, taking the last of our humanity before we even knew it was slipping away.”

In a way it was like history repeating itself. The same bloodline of players, playing out a different game, with the same end, on a different stage. The Witch Queen considered herself a purveyor of divine knowledge and power, it was why she had so many ancient texts hidden away in her castle despite the fact she could not read them, it was why she had tortured Helena and tried to harness her power.

“If we want to build a better world, we must first have the courage to destroy the world that already exists,” Athena whispered. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in business in the other world, it’s that giving a tyrant what she wants doesn’t solve your problem. It only makes it worse...”

“What exactly are you suggesting here?”

“That we shake things up a bit. She is expecting us to find some way to bring back the sun and storm the Capital following a predictable battle plan formulated by the council, right? We’re playing into her hands here, so what I’m suggesting is that we open this hall of records and not only study spells but ancient battle strategies, too, and we don’t come out until we have a solid tactic that’ll knock her off that tacky overwrought throne of hers.”

“A grand idea, but we are not seasoned strategists...”

“Exactly. Every war is the same, Helena, in either world. The only mystery that matters is who’s gonna survive. There are two groups left. The people with the flamethrowers and the people catching the flames. You’re holding a flamethrower right now, we’re holding flamethrowers right now...and we need to fucking use them, babe.”

She had not the slightest idea what a ‘flamethrower’ was, but she understood what Athena was trying to say. She knew what they had to do, and for the first time in her life her wants and the righteous choice actually matched up.

“We shall destroy her.”

“Yes we fucking will. The bitch won’t know what hit her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Born To Be Yours’ by Daniel Robinson ❤️


	7. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

Unpredictability was usually far more unsettling than it was with Athena at her side. With her, unpredictable was exciting and safe, somehow, despite the fact they were in the midst of a war. Whilst Helena found comfort in routines and structure, her love seemed to thrive when faced with chaos. They were truly opposites in every way, but somehow they fit together like they were one in the same. Athena pulled her out of her comfort zone and challenged her to do things that she never knew that she was capable of, and she was always the voice of reason that stopped her love from accidentally killing herself when her impulsiveness got the better of her — Athena called them ‘The Dream Team’, a moniker which she had rolled her eyes at, of course, but secretly found incredibly amusing.

People so often seek what they are deprived of in childhood. Sheltered children become reckless. Starving children become ambitious. And some children, like Athena, who grew up in privilege (for a short while at least), never wanting for anything, surrounded by people who do not live in the real world, people who drink their expensive wine every night and gossip about the sons and daughters of this house and that house… sometimes they only want to see the real world, to live in it and make a difference. To have genuine human contact, to see their life mean something. Helena knew that was all her lover truly wanted, and she was the only one who knew her deep enough to know that.  
Growing up with tragedy changes a person, trains them to expect still more tragedy around every corner. It’s the mind’s way of protecting them; and it is a very powerful defense. That is what total war looks like. It claims lives on the battlefield but it does not end there — it reaches beyond and digs its claws into those you love. It is all consuming. And it is heartbreaking. Whilst others could not see beyond the mask of serenity, Helena could. Athena’s eyes were so expressive that her unease was always conveyed to her through one look alone, and she knew she was afraid, and lost, and perhaps even angry that they were apparently ‘destined’ to fix whatever problems the world was harbouring when all either of them desired was a peaceful and meaningful life.

She had been quiet as Helena had completed the blood ritual to open the hall of records, only speaking when she insisted she be the one to cut herself. It was a mercy, really, as the thought of hurting her at all had made the sorceress’ hands shake and an aching ball of nausea pool in her stomach. The magic she could do, probably better than anyone else in the realm. But hurting Athena? Never. That is what life is about, she had realised: finding something one can do that no one else can, and working their hardest at it. It is about finding someone you love like no one else, someone who loves you like no one else does, and nurturing that connection endlessly.

Her magic revealed the same golden ramp lit by flames that had been in Athena’s memories, between the paws of the Sphinx. It looked much the same as it had done all those years ago, only hidden under a layer of dust that left golden footprints behind them and made them both cough as they walked hand in hand along the passageway.

The sheer amount of gold and precious gems they passed by could feed an entire village for a decade or two, Helena was sure. Never in her life had she seen such a blatant display of wealth, of power, and for someone who had been the Witch Queen’s captive pet for years that was saying something. This was an entirely different league of ‘old money’ that made her castle look like it may as well have been some shabby peasants shack in the middle of nowhere.

Even whilst inside the tunnel she could feel the ancient magic radiating between the gem encrusted ceiling, walls, and floors, a strange magic that pooled around her love and made her look as if she was glowing. Athena did not even seem to notice the fact that her skin was sparkling, nor did she display any sings of the distress or discomfort one would expect whilst being a channel for such a strong spell. 

Had anyone to enter without her or an offering of sorts given to them by her, she got the sense that they would die the most painful death. Walking through such a heavily enchanted space without either something to neutralise the spell or Athena’s presence would be a particularly brutal death sentence for anyone.

“Perhaps there shall be information about whatever spell is enchanting this hallway, it could be useful when planning our attack,” she murmured, unable to keep her eyes off of the halo of light emitting from Athena’s body. “If we can enchant a space with this same magic, mask it so it is somehow undetectable, and lure her inside she would die the moment she attempted to attack.”

“There is.”

“How do you know?”

“I...is saying that I feel it in my bones too cliche of an answer? Cause I do.”

“I have never seen magic like this before, my love. It would destroy the world to protect you if pushed to its limits.”

Athena glanced at her, a small smirk twitching at the corners of her lips. “Kind of like you then? A beautiful power unlike anything the world has ever seen, capable of anything to protect your loved ones.”

She snorted, not bothering to hide her amusement as they approached a golden set of double doors that dwarfed them both. “I do not make you sparkle, though.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“It— Well— I— It is highly unfair to fluster me whilst on such an important quest.”

“Hey, it’s highly unfair that I’m sparkling like Edward Cullen after a shopping spree in the body glitter section of Claire’s Accessories over here but you don’t see me complaining.”

“Edward who?”

“Trust me when I say you don’t wanna know, babe,” Athena giggled, turning her attention back to the doors ahead of them.

She did not even have to touch the doors for them to open, the magic surrounding her seemingly reading her mind as she lifted her hand. The action startled her, and the terrified look that flashed across her face was one Helena recognised all too well. For someone not used to having magic bend to her will the action of a door opening by itself would be understandably jarring, even if it was only the nature of the spell cast upon the area to bend to her desires despite the fact that she had not a single drop of magic coursing through her blood.

“Take it slowly, this is an extremely powerful spell that will react to your every whim as if you are a sorceress whilst we are in here. You must remain as internally relaxed as you portray yourself to be on the outside otherwise it will react off of your emotions,” she said, whilst soothingly stroking her thumb across her knuckles.

“Oh shit. Can you drain it?”

“No. This is a dangerous sort of magic, Athena, and it will kill anyone who tries to harm you in anyway...like a bodyguard of sorts. Whilst me draining it away would not be intended to hurt you all the spell would sense is your life being drained, and it would react accordingly.”

Her brow furrowed. “Spells can sense things?”

“Every spell is authored by intent, so every spell can sense the castor’s innermost desires to an extent. The most powerful ones, though, respond almost as if they have a consciousness of their own.”

Athena nodded and took a deep breath to centre herself. “This is fucking wild.”

They proceeded slowly through the open doors, as soon as Athena had crossed over the threshold torches flickered to life, illuminating the vast chamber lined with golden shelves and shelves of documents and artefacts. The seemingly spontaneous illumination startled the mage and he absentminded flinch felt like it was shaking the very earth itself. As the room trembled clouds of dust flew into the air, making them both cough again until it settled back down.

Once the dust cloud had dissipated she was able to really take it the chamber itself. The first thing that struck her was that it smelled of an odd mixture of must, magic, and old inky parchment paper, and that it was surprisingly cold enough for the air to feel almost damp. Large pieces of technology were placed at the end of each row of shelves, contraptions made entirely from sleekly carved metal that she had not the faintest idea the purpose for towering above both of their heads — the only thing she recognised a Star Gate, half concealed beneath an old sheet. Scrolls upon scrolls were piled upon each shelf alongside many leather bound books, so many of them that it looked as if someone had just stuffed as many as they could upon the shelves, as some were stood vertically with others piled on top of them and others were stacked in towers.

The Witch Queen would kill to have this place within her grasp, Helena knew all too well. The sheer amount of documents there made her vast collection look like nothing.

“Babe, there are books here but they’re not written in demonic,” Athena called out to her from her position by a dusty wooden desk a few feet away, as she inspected one of the shelves. “I think they’re written in the same language the grimoire is...and the handwriting looks like Carreau’s.”

A mountain of leather bound books were piled upon the desk, all under a thick layer of dust that could be scraped off with a shovel. Unsure of how the magic imbued in the walls would react to her own spells, she did not banish the dust the way that she normally would and did not ask Athena to either, as she knew that being unfamiliar with the temporary powers she possessed would likely lead to her unintentionally throwing the entire desk against the wall. 

“The titles are written in demonic, my love. Will you translate?,” she asked whilst helping Athena brush the dust away with her cloak.

“An Imperial History. The Codex Of Curses. Alchemical Warfare. Journeys Through The Star Gate. Djall’s Deadliest Enchantments. The Book of Ala - Divine Weather Magic.”

“Weather magic? Perhaps this is the one I should start with...but that...that does not explain why all of these, save for the historical one, are written in my native tongue.”

“I get the sense they were all written for you, babe,” Athena smiled, pulling the chair out for her to sit down on and draping her own cloak over the ancient wood to stop her from getting dust on her clothes. “If you want you can read through these and I’ll go see what other cool shit is in here whilst looking at the historical book.”

“Yes, but you must promise me you will be mindful of the fact that you are harbouring a great deal of power right now and that engaging in impulsive behaviour without fully thinking through your actions is not wise.”

“Yes, mam,” Athena smirked, playfully poking her tongue out at her for good measure.

“Behave yourself.”

“Make me.”

“You are incorrigible.”

Reading was Helena’s favourite hobby, and had her progress not been interrupted with periodic crashes and curse words, and miniature earthquakes, followed by frantic assurances that all was well she could have lost herself for an age in the books left on what she naturally assumed was Carreau’s desk. Athena, despite all her grace and beauty, was undeniably as impulsive as the average child whilst hyped up on sweet treats. Perhaps her one character flaw was the magnitude of reckless behaviour she engaged in without first stopping to think a situation through. Like climbing up fragile ancient shelves because she saw something shiny, or flinching away from bugs and a few stray mice with such ferocity that the spell protecting her caused the earth to tremble. The sorceress adored her, but there were times she seriously considered binding her in a corner for her own protection — she could not even begin to fathom how she had survived for so long without her, as it seemed like she was the only thing that stopped the mage from inadvertently killing herself multiple times on an hourly basis.

It was not all her fault, that she knew. She literally could not help herself. Athena had explained to her that as a child she had been diagnosed with a disorder of the brain that influenced her actions. It meant that she had grown up different in yet another way from those around her. Unchecked, it meant; extreme hypersensitivity. A bottomless pit of feeling that one was failing, but three days later, one feels like they could do anything, only to end the week where they began. Not learning from mistakes. Moments of knowing pain is self inflicted, followed by blaming the world. It was wanting to listen, but sometimes just not being able to. It was fighting to be right; to be respected and heard. It was a tiring life of endless games with people, in order to seek stimulus. It was a hyper focus, so intense that it was impossible to pay attention to anything else for very long. It was a never-ending routine of forgetting things unintentionally and then feeling guilty. It was a boredom that was impossible to cure. It wore her out. It could wear everyone out. It was speaking and acting without first filtering or thinking. It was extreme risk taking, thrill seeking and intense emotions that never ended. It was an inability to be still for long, and uncontrollable fidgety behaviours when she lacked stimulus or was not particularly interested in what was going on around her. It was devotion to the gifts and talents she had been given that provided temporary relief. It was the subtle latching onto the acceptance of others — like a scared child. It was a journey that had no end, and without ‘focus’ it took her nowhere. It was the deepest upset when someone she loved hurt her and the greatest love when they did not. It was pure beauty when it had purpose. It was agonising when it did not. It was called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Perhaps having the condition was why Athena was able to understand and help her so effortlessly. She, too, knew what it was to live with a brain that many would describe as being ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘broken’. Helena often wondered if that was why her endless compassion for others had first developed, wondered if subconsciously the mage had decided to give to others what she was given so little of. Perhaps she was just determined to ensure that no one else ever felt as worthless or defective as she did herself.

As Helena read she could not help but watch her love out of the corner of her eye, just to ensure she really was being safe, but eventually Athena sprawled out on the floor with a small wooden box between her hands and her book rested on her thighs. What was in the ornate looking box, she had no idea, but she could see her family’s insignia carved upon the ruby encrusted lid from where she was sitting.

They read together in a comfortable silence for a while, with nothing but the sound of turning pages and Athena’s leg bouncing up and down against the solid gold floor filling the large cavern beneath the island. She was fairly certain she knew how to return the sun to the sky, the book about weather magic made the entire thing seem far simpler than it had been merely hours before.

“Did you find anything interesting, my love?,” she asked, walking towards Athena with a bag full of the books she needed to take away with her for further studying. The rest could wait until their next visit.

“There’s a play-by-play of every war ever fought during my family’s reign, but I don’t know how accurate it all is. In war the first casualty is always the truth and history is written by the winners — so all history actually is is an agreed upon made up story that everyone has no choice but to accept as truth,” Athena grumbled. Frustration and mental exhaustion were both evident in her voice, and when she looked up at her Helena could see both clearly on her face, too.

The sorceress knelt down on the floor beside her and gently took the book away from her, closing it over before she could protest. “That is not all that is bothering you. Tell me what is wrong, perhaps I can help.”

At that the mage burst into tears. Not just simply crying, but actual choked sobs that shook her entire body as she buried her face into Helena’s shoulder. Since her injuries she had been far more emotionally fragile than she had ever seen her, she was still the strongest person that Helena knew but she had seen her cry more in the recent week than she ever had. It hurt her too whenever she was upset to the point of tears, as all she wanted was for her to be happy.

“Life on the island was great but the rest of the empire was a mess. The rulers in my family were such fascists that they make the Witch Queen look like a fucking saint. Did you know they enslaved the giants, pixies, and trolls to the point of their extinction? My great-great grandmother was burnt alive for openly protesting the treatment of other races,” Athena forced out between near hysterical sobs. “I just...I spent my entire life fantasising about my birth family and this is what I’m met with? A bunch of nazis with crowns on their head and power they didn’t deserve.”

“Athena, breathe deeply for me. Just like that, good girl, slow and deep,” she soothed, stroking the length of her back over and over again.

“I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore.” She sniffled and roughly wiped at her eyes. “It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep in the coma, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”

Helena knew all too well that fate and destiny is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. If they changes directions the sandstorm chased them. They turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over they played this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm was not something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with them. This storm was them. Something inside of them. So all they could do was give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing their eyes and plugging up their ears so the sand did not get in, and walk through it, step by step. There was no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. 

They really did have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might have been, there was no mistake about it: it could cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People bled there, and they would both bleed too. Hot, red blood. they could catch that blood in her hands, their own blood and the blood of others.

And then once the storm was over they likely would not remember how they made it through, how they managed to survive. They would not even be sure, in fact, whether the storm was really over. But one thing was certain. When they did eventually come out of the storm they would not be the same people who walked in. That was what the storm they were facing was truly all about.

Despite all her best efforts, she could not take away Athena’s pain or ensure that she would never experience any anguish at all. It was difficult for her to accept that certain thing were simply out-with the limits of what she could do. People she cared about were going to be hurt when it was time for them to be hurt, as memories and truth could tear one apart just as easily as they could mend them.

“Look at me feeling sorry for myself! What sort of selfish asshole does that make me? My family killed people for sport and here I am crying because the truth didn’t live up to my childish fantasies.”

“Athena,” she scolded, gently, wiping her tears away with her thumbs before scooping her into her arms. She was so emotional that the entire room was shaking violently, all she could do was get her out of the hall of records so that there would be no magic bound to her. “You are allowed to share your pain, you do not always have to be the strong one.”

“I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning...but this...what is feeling sorry for myself going to achieve?”

“I know that time is weighing down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You are trying to keep on moving, trying to get through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you will not be able to escape the truth of it...and it is not fair.” She walked slowly through the shaking tunnel, the straps of one of their bags draped over one of her elbows, Athena cradled in her arms, and the small wooden box she had found tucked into her pocket. The sooner she got her out the better. “Still, you have to go there- to the edge of the known world. There is something you cannot do unless you get there, my love. Perhaps that is the meaning of it.”

The makeshift encampment they had set up beneath the humongous sprawling branches of a Royal Poinciana tree in full bloom, not far from the Sphinxes was hardly the most comfortable place in the world, but with their blankets and a nice fire it seemed like it would be the best place for Athena to calm down. She was good at bottling up what she was feeling and terrible at handling her own heartache, she could work through Helena’s better than Helena could herself but flailed around when trying to do the same for herself.

Part of it was because she was so empathetic, she was sure. Her uncanny ability to just reach out and touch people, to ease their troubles, was so profound and took up so much of her energy that she just did not have any leftover to be as kind to herself as she was to others. 

Helena did what she could to make her feel better, she listened to her talking and cuddled with her, but most of what was making her so upset was the acute and deadly effects of bone crushing war-fatigue. She had been there many times before, herself. In everybody’s life, in every war, there is a point of no return. And in a few cases, a point where one feels like they just cannot go forward anymore. And when one reaches that point, all they can do is quietly accept the fact. That is how they survive. No matter how much they want to, closing their eyes is not going to change anything. Nothing will disappear just because they cannot see what is going on. In fact, things will be worse the next time they open up their eyes. That was just the kind of world that they lived in, and a lesson Helena had had to learn time and again. Keep your eyes wide open was the only choice. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears would not make time stand still or the war halt in its tracks, no matter how much she wished that it would.

There are ways of dying that do not end in funerals, deaths that do not stink after a couple of hours. Holding her utterly worn out fiancé in her arms, Helena got the sense that the almost childlike idealist that she adored in her had begun to wither. She was beginning to see the world how it really was, beginning to understand the injustice of it all in a way that she never wanted her to.

“What your family did does not say anything about you. You know this, right?,” she questioned, gently.

Athena nodded. “I just...I feel sick to my stomach after reading about how they became so powerful. They owned slaves but kept them illiterate and cut out the tongues of the ones working closest to the family to avoid them telling secrets. They regularly burned people alive as offerings to the gods. The hunted mermaids for sport. It just....um...it’s a lot to process how mad they really were. How my memories tell me one thing but the history books say another.”

“The world is but a muddle of contrasting memories and truths, my love. Your memories are pleasant because you were too young to know better, to be socially conscious.”

The brunette took a long sip out of the steaming hot mug of tea that Helena had made for her, nursing the cup between her shaking hands. “I need to make sure everyone whose blood was spilled by my relatives didn’t die in vain. I need to prove that the world can be better, that one of us can be a good person regardless of how disgusting the rest of the family was— or is, because the Witch Queen’s distant ancestor was my father’s bastard son. I need to make this right somehow.”

“That is a lot to carry on your shoulders, Athena. You are a wonderful person, but even you can only bear so much.”

“There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after, right now. I don’t know exactly what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets really scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself and about you. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I might end up hurting people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being— demon, I mean...a wonderful demon.”

She pressed a kiss against her forehead at that, allowing her lips to linger against her clammy skin. It would take some time for it to sink in, that she was indeed a demon...only minus the pointy ears and heightened abilities.

“It happened,” Athena murmured quietly, sounding more like herself. “Whether it's right or wrong, it happened and I can’t change it or make up for it. The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. You and I have survived so much, and because of that we have a duty...and that is to just keep on living. Even when our lives aren’t perfect. I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now. I’m not proud of where I came from or what they did, but I can do better. I will do better until my last breath.”

“There she is,” Helena whispered, smiling sweetly at her whilst continuing to affectionately stroke the baby hairs that framed her face. There was just something about her — say there was an hourglass that was mere seconds away from running out of sand, Athena was the one who could always be counted on to turn the thing over. Everybody was born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. She had one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it got out of hand. It swelled or shrinks inside her, and it shook everything up.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Athena, always.”

—

Travelling back to the siege to relay their plan had not taken long, the second they had formed it they left the island. It terrified her that part of it was allowing Athena’s true identity and ability to read the ancient language to become common knowledge — effectively using her to bait the Witch Queen. 

It was a precarious situation to be in, with Athena’s life and wellbeing literally balancing on the very edge of an incredibly steep cliff. No one could say how long life would last, regardless of the retainers and Alain’s promises to help ensure Athena would be in no real danger. Whatever has form can disappear in an instant, kidnapping could be done far too easily, and even the strongest of hearts only took seconds to stop beating.

It was just not possible for one person to watch over another person forever and ever. When they got married and the war was done, they would have to work during the day. Who would watch over Athena like a hawk whilst she was away? She could not be glued to her every minute of their lives, she had to give Athena space to live and thrive regardless of how much she feared for her safety. What kind of equality would there be in her refusing to allow her to do what needed to be done just because it was dangerous? What kind of relationship would that be? Sooner or later Athena would get sick of being controlled had she to protect her from absolutely everything that could possibly go wrong before it had even happened. Helena, too, would eventually wonder what she was doing with her life, why she was spending all her time babysitting the most wonderful woman. Neither of them could stand that. It would not solve any of their problems or save the world from a tyrant.

“And where exactly is this hall of records, Lady Spencer—“

“Princess Mirren— or Queen Mirren, the rightful monarch of the demons,” Barzilai bellowed, interrupting the faerie councillor that Athena absolutely despised. “You will refer to her using her title—“

“My name is Athena and I would appreciate it if you used it whilst referring to me,” Athena interjected, calmly, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest as if daring anyone to argue with her. The makeshift council chamber in the round tent fell silent at her interjecting and arguing with the king. No one ever argued with Barzilai. “There’s already an absolute psychopath with my face running around like a fucking lunatic, the last thing anyone needs is to elevate me to some superior status I’ve done nothing to earn.” She took a deep breath and then continued, “and I’ll be keeping the exact location of the hall of records and how to access it between Helena and I for the time being. Once the war is over I’ll be more than happy to share the information with Lord Reiner and his retainers, King Barzilai, and Queen Ishara, but until then there is no reason why anyone else needs to know it. Everything in there belongs to Saerys and I, and I won’t allow you to access it until the two of us have read through everything and fully understand the history of our people.”

Saerys breath hitched in his throat beside her, his eyes never leaving Athena. He was looking at her like she was the sun, but still seemed a little dazed with the information.

“This is preposterous!,” one of the dwarves snapped.

“Oh, I assure you it isn’t,” Athena breathed. The disgruntled councillors shrank under her gaze, that same aloof demeanour that unsettled them making them go red in the face and causing them to squirm in their seats. “I am more than happy to share the information we have uncovered with everyone in the realm when I decide to, but I will not be ordered around by a bunch of old men who have never even set foot on the battlefield and think they’re better than everyone because they were born into noble families due to nothing more than an accident of fate.”

Altea struggled to choke back a laugh at that, turning bright red in the face and subtly hiding behind Helena when everyone turned to look at her. Even Ishara looked supremely proud at the sharpness of Athena’s tongue. She herself just found it incredibly arousing to see her take charge in such a manner, making the people that they both despised squirm.

“Quite right, my child,” Ishara nodded, stepping forwards to rest a hand on her shoulder. “The island and everything on it is rightfully yours to do with what you wish, but I do not doubt that you and your betrothed and your friends will make good use of it all. There is a lot of good that can and will be done with all you have found there to cure from these strange days that seem to revolve around death in the midst of life.”

“This is an outrage! Your majesty, you cannot possibly be condoning such childish behaviour—“

“Hold your tongue!,” Reiner snapped, silencing the same angry faerie. “Need I remind you that Athena, whilst only a young mage in body, is far older and more noble than the lot of us combined? You will respect her wishes and respect her as a woman of royal blood, regardless of her wish to remain titleless.”

Altea and Iseul both sniggered, the pair of them hiding behind Helena’s back like children as Ishara turned to scold them. Hiding her friends from the glare of the council was the only thing stopping her from vaulting the table and strangling the councillors who had anything bad to say about her love, so the fact that they were clearly too heavily intoxicated to behave properly was a blessing.

“This is the war to end all wars,” the faerie scowled, “and it involves each of us. I deserve to know—“

“Do you?,” Athena laughed, humourlessly. “See, anyone with that attitude deserves absolutely nothing but a harsh reality check, in my opinion. There is no war to end all wars, councillor. War will always breed more war, lapping up the bloodshed and the violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a self contained being, surely everyone here knows that.”

“She speaks with the same passion as the queen but yet her words hold kindness, even when she is not impressed,” Alain whispered to her, quiet enough that no one else could hear. The former general was looking at her with the same awestruck expression as everyone else in the tent was, watching the tiny girl commanding the aristocratic fools she despised so calmly and like she had been doing it for her entire life — Helena had insisted she wanted her to do the talking, as the thought of being the centre of their attention once again gave her hives.

Helena lit up with pride and nodded her head, stifling her own giggles at the fact Ishara and Barzilai were both clearly struggling to remain composed as Athena’s very specific brand of snark shut down the ‘haters’, as she called them. Iseul, Altea, and Saerys were not even bothering to hide their hysterical laughter, and Reiner and August were both visibly amused by how naturally handling old politicians came to Athena.

“Were I in her position I think I would have punched the faerie by now,” Alain added.

“Mm...I think I would have resorted to beheading him, myself,” she shrugged, smirking at him.

Alain huffed in amusement, his eyes sparkling genuinely at her. “I see your hand tightening around the hilt of your sword, my friend.”

“A habit I am trying to break. My lady does not take kindly to unnecessary beheadings but I do not take kindly to those who irritate her.”

“Ah, I see. Perhaps you could just stab him in an entirely non-fatal sort of way then?,” Alain joked.

“Do not tempt me. I am not nearly a virtuous as she is.”

War was hard. People always ended up exhausted and spent, but later, in retrospect and at odd moments, they realise what it all was for. The parts will always fall into place, and the whole picture becomes visible and finally one can understand the role each individual part plays. The dawn comes, the sky grows light, and the colors and shapes of the roofs of houses, which could only be glimpses vaguely before, come into full view. Standing there, in the middle of a political argument so iconic it was making everyone laugh to the point of tears in the height of the war, Helena was somehow so incredibly happy. Had the rest of her life to be even a fraction as joyous, she would die the happiest mage in the realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter named after the acoustic version of ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ by Paul Canning ❤️


	8. Fix You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence and death, but I kept it as non-graphic as I could.

Helena longed to bring back the sun, but the council had decided that doing so before the Witch Queen was defeated was unwise. They wanted her to think that they were weak, clueless, too completely absorbed in the news of Athena’s true identity to be planning an offensive. Athena, of course, had flexed her rights as a royal and called the noble politicians that they despised idiots to their faces — out of all the doors being a princess opened, not having to fake niceties with anyone she did not like or who irritated her was the only one the incorrigible woman cared about.

Were she anyone else, Helena was certain the draw of power would be all too much. Technically speaking, Athena had far more right to the throne than Barzilai did, but the mage just did not care. In the days that had passed since their return to the siege she had to be quite literally dragged by the hand like a child to attend the daily council meetings by Ishara, and would often return to her so bored and under-stimulated that she could barely function. She and politics just did not mix, anything where she had to be still and socialise with people she did not like in regards to things that she was not particularly interested in was a challenge for her — and whilst Helena had discreetly attempted to explain the nature of her condition to Reiner and Ishara, they still wanted her involved in the day-to-day running’s of the siege. Part of that was to keep her safe whilst Helena studied with Altea, which was a blessing, as there was no doubts in her mind that the Witch Queen would have heard of her identity and would be planning a kidnapping attempt, and part of that was that they appreciated her unique viewpoints and take-no-prisoners attitude. Her refusal — or at times a literal inability — to hold back exactly what she was thinking without first filtering it the way most others did was actually one of her greatest strengths.

“Barzilai has been awfully friendly since her identity has come to light,” Altea whispered to her, golden eyes focused on Athena and the king chatting a few feet away from where they were studying the ancient texts.

“I suppose he is ensuring she will not seek to overthrow him once all is said and done,” she shrugged, looking up just to make sure the bear of a man was not in any way making her love uncomfortable or getting ideas above his station. She had already threatened to remove the hands of no less than twelve soldiers who had attempted to touch her and worship her the way the Queen’s cultists did without first asking permission, and she was by no means above threatening the king should he ever dare to make Athena uncomfortable. 

Thankfully, though, Athena did not seem at all phased by his new found interest in her. Standing a few feet away by the war table in the makeshift council chamber, she was holding her own amongst the throngs of nobles with Saerys at her side and relaying parts of the history book to them — describing one battle or other, word for word, to better their offensive.

“Mm...how sensible of him. I know Athena has no interest in the business of ruling but she would be the most beloved monarch, she is so adaptable that she has taken to her role like a duck to water and everybody adores her.”

“Such is how she takes to everything whilst it is new and exciting, it is only once she realises that she is uninterested does she attempt to do everything to find a way out of it.” Her voice was filled with nothing but the utmost affection as she watched her lover fidgeting with the ends of her hair as she worked. “Just this morning she attempted to convince me that she had plague in order to stay in bed. When I told her the illness was passed by rodents, she then decided it must have been Typhoid Fever or Typhus. All to get out of politics.”

“She has taken a page out of our dear Iseul’s book, so it seems,” Altea chuckled, nodding towards the tortured looking elf. He was sprawled out face down across the floor at his clearly disgruntled mother’s feet, as if he were literally playing dead.

“Well, pretending to be a corpse is but a step away from feigning deadly illnesses. She learned fast...I can only pray her flair for the dramatics does not take her that far.”

She and Altea shared a laugh at that, before returning their attention to their books. With the sheer amount of information that they had and the short time that they had to absorb as much of it as possible, it was pleasant to have another caster to work with. Knowing that the Witch Queen would be planning her own offensive as a means to harm her love spurred her on when her eyes started to cross and exhaustion set in — as far as she was concerned she was studying to protect her above all others, everything else came secondary to her safety.

News of her identity had travelled like wildfire through their encampment, just as they had intended it to, which meant that the Magnus’ men would have heard whisperings of it, too. There was no doubt in Helena’s mind that the other side knew the truth, as critical information was always difficult to keep intentionally contained in war...and this was something they wanted her to know. That they needed her to be tempted by in order to bait her.

“Are you really so sheltered that you believe in the concept of good and evil?,” Athena laughed, drawing her attention once again as she stared down the dwarven councillor that irritated her. “No one is an unjust villain in their own mind. Even — perhaps even especially — those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in the history of both worlds were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.”

“Are you trying to insinuate the Witch Queen is good, Athena?,” the man huffed.

“No. Not at all. All I’m saying is that who is good and who is evil depends on where you’re standing. War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains...and the sooner you people realise that and get down off your high horses the better things will be.”

“Why is it that you insist upon being the moral authority of this council? The holy writings state that only one of divine blood has such a right to attempt to manipulate the morality of others—“

“If there is a divine creator, some ultimate moral authority, then why do bad things happen to good people? And why would this deity create people at all, since people are such imperfect beings?,” Athena asked, casually sitting up on the war table and staring down the dwarf. “This isn’t some religious war, you absolute idiot, and I speak the way I do since evidently I’m the only one — besides Reiner, Ishara, and Barzilai — who seem to realise that. Because maybe I hope that something I say will make you realise that when you accept that you hold the fate of the realm in your hands, your life ceases to be your own and you have a responsibility to use that power responsibly — and attempting to convince people to plan battles based on some ridiculous religious texts is just fucking stupid and will get people killed. You’ve spent so long at the top, isolated and protected from the ways of the world, that you’ve forgotten that you, too, can fall. What you think is your biggest strength is actually your greatest weakness.”

“Blasphemy!,” the dwarf roared.

“You act like you know hardship, but you wouldn’t know it if it kicked you in the teeth...and it does that a lot. You don’t know the meaning of pain, or of danger, it’s evidently only your pride that can be hurt,” Athena deadpanned. “Listen, you people are the ones who want me involved in this thing because apparently you think I’m supposed to save you or something. You want me to take charge, to rule the coming days in some way or other, but you’re used to having rulers who you can manipulate and who’s choices are made for them — and I have already made it perfectly clear that I will never allow any of you to control me or think for me. I have a brain and I intend to use it. If you don’t like that then you can leave, go home and wallow in self-pity, because I’m not allowing an entire generation of young people to die because some old men decided now is the time to be religious.”

“Well said, my dear one,” Ishara beamed, giving Athena’s hand an affectionate squeeze.

“But the goddess says—“

“Dude, you’re just embarrassing yourself,” Athena cringed. “You’re attempting to be all high and mighty, but you’re missing the entire point of religion. This goddess has no power at all, except what people choose to give her. She can only affect life directly through the actions of us, through flesh and through blood. You’ve been rambling on and on about my destiny and goddesses and deities and Carreau— who you know nothing about —all day, but my destiny is not written in any stars. I make my own choices fully and autonomously, I am no victim of destiny or tool to be commanded by this goddess you are convinced is controlling everything — I command her.”

The tent fell silent. Even Ishara was gaping at her, stunned and wide eyed at what she had just said. Evidently, no one was quite used to the way Athena’s unleashed mind worked just yet, of the way she could cut to the bone so effortlessly.

She was so proud of her that she could not help but smile, once again. There she was, all hers, trying her best to give everybody all that she possibly could. How could anybody ever want to hurt her? How could anyone bask in the light of such a pure soul and seek to do harm? Her beauty was not just — or even primarily — physical. In her face, she saw her wisdom, her compassion, her courage, her eternal glory. This other beauty, this spiritual beauty — which was actually the deepest truth of her — sustained her in times of fear and despair, as other truths might sustain a person enduring martyrdom at the hands of a tyrant. She saw nothing blasphemous in equating her grace with the mercy of the goddess that the councillors had been rambling on about, for the one was a reflection of the other. The selfless love that she gave to others to the point of being willing to sacrifice her own life for them, was all the proof she needed to see that people were not mere animals of self-interest; they carry within them a divine spark, and if they chose to recognise it, their lives have dignity, meaning, hope. In her it was a spark that burned brighter than the sun itself, a light that healed her rather than wound her.

Even though Helena had been hurt badly before, for a long time she did not understand that it was indeed possible to hurt somebody so badly that they would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage people far beyond repair. What the Witch Queen would do if she got her hands on either her or Athena terrified her, and being unable to discern who would be her biggest target did little to ease her discomfort...only being near to Athena could do that.

Her mind was coming up with all sorts of horrible scenarios where they were both ultimately captured. The Witch Queen would not think twice about torturing her before Athena’s eyes to manipulate her into translating the ancient records within her castle — she was smart enough to know that the girl would not break under physical pain, so torturing her directly would do little. However, if she wanted to torment the sorceress she would absolutely force her love to face every single indignity that she had suffered over the years, and she would make her watch. Love can be exploited, used to manipulate. It is leverage. But she would never call loving someone else a weakness, ever. To live a life without love at all, any kind of love, was true weakness. And the worst kind of darkness.

The thoughts were so pervasive that she would hardly identify them as mere fears, they absolutely terrorised her to the extent that she would not allow Athena out of her sight for so much as a moment. Athena did what she could to calm her, but she understood how dangerous using her as bait was and how guilty Helena felt for agreeing to go along with it, so she did not complain about having most of her freedom restricted for her own safety.

Great danger is always associated with great power and great outcomes, Helena had learned. The difference between great people and the mediocre is that the great are always willing to take the risk, even if it means putting themselves on the line for the good of others.

“Lord Reiner!” August’s voice was breathy, heard before he came barrelling into the council chamber tent. “General Vestergaard is at our border waving a white flag with a woman we believed to be Solaire at his side, but she is not her. He wishes to speak to Athena about her, she goes by the name ‘Sophie’. He is refusing to talk to anyone but Athena. Richter and some of our men have them surrounded, what are my orders?”

Without a word, Athena sprung down from the table and took off towards the exit of the tent, and Helena had to lunge just so that she could grab her in time to stop her from acting impulsively.

“Helena, she is like my sister! I have to go—“

“Yes, I know, but I will not allow you to act on your impulsivity and charge into a confrontation by yourself,” she admonished. “Your armour is still in the process of being restored, so you will stay behind me at all times.”

“Babe—“

“Athena. I am serious. You either stay behind me or you stay here and allow me to handle this by myself.”

When they left the tent she, the retainers, and Ishara surrounded Athena like a heard, armoured, heavily armed, and with magic at the ready incase of a sudden ambush or kidnapping attempt. Knowing that she was encircled with no way to rush past them and do anything impulsive to try to rescue her friend settled the anxiety that had begun to twist deep in her gut, she was as safe as she could be. 

They would protect her. 

She would protect her.

She expected Sophie to be scared and disoriented. After being cast into a different world — albeit under much more peaceful conditions — Athena had seemed dazed and uncomfortable for days, convinced that she was dreaming. But when their group marched on the sprawling torch lit poppy fields that bordered their camp on the east side, she knew straightaway that something was amiss. Sophie was calm, seemingly unfazed by everything happening around her. There were no signs of violence, not a single one of her hairs out of place.

“Soph! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?!,” Athena asked, standing on her tip toes and peaking out from the space between her and Ishara’s arms.

“Girl, I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t know—“

“Silence, Sophira,” Magnus scolded, baring his unkempt and crooked teeth in the most unsightly sneer. It was so aggressive and animalistic she half expected to see fangs.

“Sophira? Soph?”

“Oh, so my Queen was right. You really are so clueless that you do not yet know you have been cosying up to her spies, princess.”

“Spies? Magnus, what are you talking about?,” she snapped, instinctively holding Athena to her back with one arm when she sensed she was going to do something impulsive.

“Show them your wings, faerie, make them understand.”

All of a sudden, wings that were identical to Solaire’s emerged from Sophie’s back. The young woman’s eyes were directed downwards and she shifted her weight awkwardly between her feet, unable to meet anyone’s gaze.

“You’re a fucking faerie?! What the shit?! You...you lied to me—“

“No! I just—“

“Yes, you lied to her,” Magnus mocked. “Tell her how you were the one who performed the ritual that made her into our queen’s vessel—“

“I didn’t know what I was doing, or who you were! I swear! No one knew you were a demon! Solaire, my sister—“

Magnus made loud tutting sounds with his tongue. “We may not have known who she was but you still harmed her, acted as her jailor on our queen’s orders...all for what—“

“To keep my sister safe! She manipulated us! Athena, I swear I never meant to hurt you! I love you, you’re my best friend! It was orders at first but that changed! I swear!”

It was taking every ounce of self control Helena had inside of her not to charge forward and gut the faerie where she stood. She hurt her love. She made her the channel for the Witch Queen’s resurrection. Her. Someone who she thought they could trust was really just as manipulative as the queen herself. Were she anyone else Helena would not have hesitated to drain her dry.

“Sophie, how could you do this to me?! You were the one person I could trust for so long! But it was all a lie, wasn’t it—“

“Athena, you have to listen to me! You have to! I know you’re pissed, but you of all people should know the difference between secrets and lies—“

“I’m not ‘pissed’, you’ve broken my fucking heart.”

“Please listen to me—“

“In what life can I trust anything out of your mouth ever again?!”

“I know and I’m sorry. You know people, Athena, you understand them, you see through them. You’re allowed to me mad at me, but if one day,” she said, really crying, “you look back and you feel bad for being so angry, if you feel bad for being so angry at me that you couldn't even really speak to me because I don’t deserve it, then you have to know, you have to that it was okay. It was okay. That I knew. I know, okay? I know everything you need to tell me without you having to say it out loud...and you know everything I need to tell you. Deep down you know.”

“You’re talking in riddles now, great. Just what I need.”

Athena had always said that people are complicated beasts, regardless of their species. How can a queen be both a good witch in the eyes of a few and a bad witch to the many? How can a sorceress be a murderer and a saviour? How can an apothecary be evil-tempered but right-thinking? How can a parson be wrong-thinking but good-hearted? How can invisible men make themselves more lonely by being seen? The answer was that it did not matter what a person thought because everybody’s mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. The mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And the mind will punish for believing both, for believing that it was possible to know more than one person so deeply.

Besides Athena, Sophie and Solaire were perhaps the two other people she were not capable of such a deep betrayal. But anyone can betray anyone. At any time. Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.

“You said you had a message for me, Magnus?,” Athena asked, pointedly turning attention away from the sobbing faerie ignoring Sophie’s frantic pleas for forgiveness and disjointed excuses. 

“Ah, that I most certainly do, princess.” Before anyone knew what was happening, Magnus managed to grab hold of one of the soldier’s swords that was surrounding him. He moved far too quickly for anyone to intervene, clearly enchanted with some spell or other that allowed him to move so swiftly that it was almost undetectable until after the fact. But somehow time seemed to simultaneously slow down, everything happening in slow motion as the world blurred around them. 

In the flurry of movement, all Helena could think to do was tackle Athena to the ground and conjured a shield around them. Keeping her safe was the only thing on her mind. That, however, did not do anything to protect her from the carnage unfolding before them. Physically, she was fine, but mentally Helena felt her shattering as the long silver blade, sharp and dwarven made, and glistening beneath the flickering torch light, was sliced through Sophie’s neck in one clean motion....severing her head entirely.

When Athena screamed, she sounded like a wounded animal. The pained, wailing sound reverberated above the clashing of metal and throwing of spells, above Alain’s weapon piercing Magnus’ armour and the thud of his body as it landed amongst the red flowers. It was the worst sort of crying, the kind that everyone could see. Her soul was weeping and no matter what she did there was no way to comfort it. There was no way to undo what had been done.

When her shield fell and Helena sat up, Athena just lay still and cried face down into the damp grass, and the rest of the world fell utterly silent. Silenced by the traumatised girl’s hysterical cries, by the weight of her soul as it tore itself apart. The wounds that never show on the body are often far deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

“Ta-take the body away. Please,” she pleaded to Reiner, fighting her own tears to rest a comforting hand on the back of her screaming fiancé’s head. “Somewhere she cannot see it— her.”

“We will take her somewhere safe,” Saerys said as he dragged Iseul by the arm towards Sophie’s mutilated corpse.

Grief was a strange thing. It is a pain that never got better. The wound would eventually scab over and one did not always feel like a knife is slashing them through. But when she would least expect it, the pain would flash to remind them that they would never be the same. The death of a loved one, specifically one so brutal, would be far more difficult to cope with than even the most bloody of battles. Athena was no stranger to death, but having just been deceived by her ‘sister’ and then watched her be murdered before her eyes...Helena did not know how she would even begin to reconcile that within herself.

Somehow, Athena felt far heavier than she usually was as Helena scooped her up and tucked her beneath her chin. The mage clung to her like never before, with every ounce of strength she could muster in her trembling limbs — which, admittedly, was not very much but she was clinging to her in such away that Helena knew that she could not tolerate it if she had to let her go. Like she was the one thing helping her keep what little composure she had left intact.

“I feel sick,” Athena choked, leaning over the grass as Helena quickly bundled her hair up in her fists. She was in shock. Having been there herself after her recent injury, Helena recognised the pale and clammy skin, wide eyes, and inability to hold still due to the severity of trembling limbs.

“You are safe, my love. I know you do not feel it, but you are. I will not let anyone hurt you.”

Athena just whimpered in response.

“Helena, as a safety precaution I want you to move the contents of your tent into the council chamber. This is a direct threat, all of us must be in the one heavily guarded area for tonight at least,” Reiner said to her, his eyes filled with the deepest sympathies.

“She needs space to grieve, Reiner,” she protested.

“I know but Ishara gave the order, Helena, so I would not question it.” 

—

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. 

People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognised, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom. The psychological distress symptoms of traumatised people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatised people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event.

Athena suddenly looked like a ghost, haunted by the life she had witnessed come to such a brutal end. Not eating. Not sleeping. Not washing. Not getting out of bed. Barely talking kindly to anyone but their friends, unless it was to angrily call out their stupidity in a far more brutal way than anyone was used to from her — and then the guilt for having been rude would consume her. Having to be forced to drink water. Back in that coma. Dead inside.

Grief makes a monster out of people sometimes...and sometimes when one is grieving so deeply they say and do things to the people they love that they cannot forgive themselves for. No one blamed Athena’s sudden descent into darkness upon her, no one held it against her...no one but Athena, herself. 

It might have been easier for her to cope if they were allowed their own space, but Ishara continued to insist that the two of them, Altea, and herself, share the council chamber tent for protection. There were some small mercies; that the men were kept in a separate tent, that Altea and Ishara’s company was pleasant, and that Athena was not being forced to interact with people too much.

“I don’t even know why you’re still here. God. I’m a fucking mess,” Athena whispered without even lifting her head up off of Helena’s chest. She had been wanting to do nothing but lay in her embrace within the confines of their new tent in the forty-eight hours since Sophie’s murder. Limp and absolutely exhausted.

“You are my everything,” the sorceress said. “You can be challenging, and stubborn, and guarded. I love those things about you. You are fascinating, and smart, and complex, and funny, and kind. I love those things about you, too. I am in love with your selflessness and how you are always willing to sacrifice too much for the ones you care about. I am in love with the parts of you that you fear, that hurt, and that push people away. I am in love with your vulnerability with me and your strength. I am in love with your capacity to love harder and with more loyalty than I ever imagined that anyone could. I am in love with the choices that you have made, even the mistakes, because they have all lead us to this moment where we are right now. More than those things, it is simple, I am in love with you and absolutely everything that you are. Your past, your present, and your future.” Her fingertips gently traced the outline of Athena’s softly parted lips, then wandered up to caress her drawn cheek that had flushed a rosy shade of pink that stood out against the fairness of her skin. “I think about you all the time, and I cannot ever get you out of my head. I am listening to my heart finally without questioning everything that I am doing, and that is all because of you. And I will never stop.” She kissed her, long and hard, with Athena returning every ounce of passion that she was given, only eventually slowing when the annoying need to breathe kicked in. “I am never ashamed of you, or of us. I do not know if I have ever actually said these words but, my love, meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. That is why I am here, why I stay. Being in pain does not make you a bad person who is unworthy of love, you are the one who taught me that.”

Athena sniffled and nodded her head. “I can’t trust anyone but you.”

After a traumatic experience the innate system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment — that was something Helena knew all too well. Trauma shatters one’s most basic assumptions about the very world itself — ‘I am safe’, ‘the world is good’, ‘people are kind’, ‘I can trust others’, ‘the future is likely to be good’ — and replaces them with feelings like; ‘the world is an inherently dangerous place’, ‘I am not safe’, ‘I cannot trust other people’, or in Athena’s case, ‘everyone but my most trusted person will deceive me and hurt me at the first opportunity to do so’.

“That is not true, my love. Not everyone will hurt you.”

“For the longest time she was my family. She was my person...and I knew nothing about her or what she was doing to me...but I can’t hate her. God, all I want is to hate her but she...until I met you she was the best friend I ever had and I don’t even know if any of it was real.”

“I...I think that she first got close to you by following orders but then it became real when she realised how wonderful a person you are,” she rationalised, as best she could. “Everyone who gets close to you falls in love with your big heart and gentle soul, and I think that was the case for her. I may not be the most socially conscious individual but I know a real connection when I see it, and I saw you two together...the kind of love and admiration that you shared cannot easily be falsified.”

“Why is it that memories can be such an intense pain and punishment?,” Athena sniffled. “Now she’s gone...and she’s not coming back.”

“No, my love, she is not.” Gently, Helena pressed the sweetest kiss on top of her messy hair and squeezed her tightly. Having been a pawn in the Witch Queen’s games herself, she had been trying to sympathise with Sophie and Solaire as much as she could...but to her, hurting Athena in any way was the most unforgivable sin. It was not an easy thing to wrestle with, as she had genuinely liked both Sophie and Solaire, but anyone who hurt her love automatically hurt her too by the virtue of the sin.

“I’m never gonna see her again...”

“No.”

She expected Athena to dissolve into tears once more, but she did not. Instead she seemed to be wrestling with what she had once told her, about how she believed death was just like stepping into a different room, and the fresh trauma of what she had been forced to witness. The wound was still too fresh for her to be at peace with it, for the pain to have begun to dissipate. How strange it was, that the person who healed other’s pain so effortlessly could not soothe her own heart with the same ease — Helena did everything she could for her, but she was unsure of whether it was enough...and knew that asking Athena to tap into those empathic abilities that came to her by nature to ease her pain whilst suffering such agony was unfair. Her brain was a tyrant, convincing her that she was not doing enough, but regardless of that fact she knew that it was her turn to be strong, to be whatever Athena needed her to be and hold her upright until she could do so herself.

Where she came from, death happened on a daily basis. The combination of poor nutrition, extreme amounts of alcohol consumption, poor hygiene, and lack of medical care had been disastrous. Few lived past the age of five, and the poor bastards who did rarely made it through their twenties. She could recall how, after a death, people would often say that ‘everything happens for a reason’...but laying there with her lover in her arms, she realised how imbecilic a mindset that was. People do not always die for a reason. There was no grand plan in play, casually bumping people off one by one like a game of dominos. The people who are left behind only think that way for one reason, and that is to make themselves feel better.

War takes and takes and takes, and there is no rhyme nor reason to it. People get hurt and people die, generations and entire families are lost amongst the fire and bloodshed.

“You are allowed to be angry, you know. You need not feel guilty about it,” she whispered. “Anger is just anger. It is not good. It is not necessarily bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It is like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."

“Constructive anger," the demon said, her hoarse voice dripping with exhaustion.

“Also known as passion," she said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful. So be angry, if that is what you are feeling, but do not lose that passion within yourself that has done so much good and has so much good left to do.”

Athena nodded, nuzzling closer to her. She dotted a gentle kiss on her chin and tangled their legs up beneath the blanket. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For knowing what I need to hear. For being here.” She sighed. “You know, in the fantasy stories, when the girl discovers that she’s a princess, she never stops smiling. But ever since finding out who I am most of the time I feel like I’ll never smile again. I feel like a weapon, even though I have no powers and am not particularly skilled at any one form of combat. I’m literally a sword made out of skin. Born to kill the false queen, to end her reign of terror. Not a goddess’ chosen one, as some councillors seem to think...but the one cursed by her. That’s what I feel like.”

“You are not a weapon, Athena. You are different than the world demands you be, different than the legends expected you to be. Make no mistake, though, we are not worse for it.”

“If you can keep pushing forward, still believing in what we're doing, so can I. I can face the army and give a speech to boost morale before our attack like the council has asked...so long as the councillors we hate are kept far away from me...because I really might punch them.”

—

Dressed in her armour Helena stared at the polished metal of her swords, examining her reflection. The woman she saw was both familiar and foreign, General Klein, Helena, the Sorceress, and no one at all. She did not look afraid to stand in front of thousands of soldiers beside the retainers whilst her love spoke with the council at her back, as a leader. She looked to be carved of stone, with severe features, hair combed meticulously, and the colours of her former enemy decorating her body. 

At her side her love was not a mere twenty-something, but ageless, divine but not, powerful but not, a demon — but different. A legend come to life, a tyrant’s downfall, her saviour...a war hero who had yet to directly spill a single drop of blood. Dressed in her armour, both restored and now encrusted with jewels to better suit one of royal blood, she seemed almost like a doll who could take any form but her own.

“These jewels are ridiculous. Am I going to war or a ball?,” Athena muttered under her breath as she took her hand.

Helena snorted, comforted by the snarky rumbles of displeasure that she had been whispering to her since seeing what Altea and Ishara had done to her armour. It was far too...’royal looking’...for her liking.

“You look gorgeous,” she whispered, squeezing her hand back as Ishara’s speech finished and she introduced her to the endless sea of armoured warriors standing at attention. “And you will do wonderfully.”

Athena nodded, taking only a moment to centre herself before stepping forwards to Ishara’s side. She was tired. She was broken. And she did not want to fight anymore. But for a moment the moon and the torchlight caught the deep coppery undertones in her hair, and from where she was standing it looked almost as if she were wearing a sparkling crown. If the army could see her, a demon princess by blood but common human by nature, raised up, they could be inspired. It was like an old tale, a commoner becoming the princess. She was their champion, whether she wanted to be or not. 

Athena may have shunned her royal title, but not all crowns are worn where people are able to see them. And hers, hers was worn around the heart.

“I know you’re all scared, even though you’ll never admit it,” Athena started, talking as casually as if she were conversing with their small group of friends. “One thing I’ve noticed since coming home is that fear is always looked at as weakness here, but I think that fear can be a good thing. Fear doesn't let you forget what you’re actually fighting this war for, it spurs you on and makes you stronger...and I know she’s scared, too...but monsters are at their most dangerous when they are afraid, so we must be careful. She has lost all of her generals—“ A loud cheer carried through the crowd and Athena paused, turning to her and Alain and beckoning them both forwards.

The crowd fell silent as they gingerly stood by her side, dwarfing her in their full suits of armour. “The council, for some reason I can’t even begin to understand, hasn’t yet told you all that Helena is the one who killed both General Arnold and General Jubal, and two nights ago my friend, Alain, killed General Vestergaard. I’m probably going to be berated by some old men after telling you that, but I am really past the point of caring...they’re the sons and daughters of important rich people, and to a few of them, this war is just another place for them to visit — they’re either very vain or more aware than I give them credit for being, to look powerful is to be powerful...is it not?” The crowd cheered again, even louder than they had done before. “Risk is part of the game of life, I think. But I also think it’s important that you all know exactly where their allegiances lie, even if I get in trouble for disobeying. I may only have been royal for a few days now but already I’m sick of my life depending on some sort of illusion...so...fuck it...I won’t let anyone control me.”

The ripple of laughter that rumbled through the crowds of soldiers was so strong that it made the ground feel like it was shaking. All Helena could do was stand there, stunned, as Athena smiled up at her and Alain.

“I’m supposed to stand here and raise morale...whatever the fuck that means. Etiquette be damned, I’ll admit that I’m terrified for the coming days. In the world that I was raised, I used to think that there was only a single divide; rich and poor, slaves and monarchs, but there is so much more in between and I have been thrust right into the middle of it all. I keep telling myself that we’ve faced worse, but the truth is we haven’t, and not all of us are going to make it through to witness the new world that we’re fighting to build. A world that will hopefully remain free of tyrants and oppression for a long time, a world without a ruler sat on a throne that may as well be made of the skulls of her victims.” Athena squeezed her hand again, centring herself as the crowd cheered again. “So I ask that you stand with me, with us, and fight for your freedom and for the freedom of your children, your grandchildren. Who can say where the paths lead, or how the scales may balance in another decade? I suppose Ishara could...but that’s not the point. We destroy. We rebuild. We destroy again. It is the constant state of our world and of us, regardless of our species. History has its eyes on us, and we will be judged by our actions, so remember who you are and what you believe in, and fight like your life depends on it...because it does.”

“Long live the queen! Queen Athena the First!,” a soldier yelled from somewhere amongst the crowd. The sentiment was echoed until the entire army was chanting Athena’s name, loudly and proudly.

“I appreciate the love, guys, but I’m no Queen,” Athena cackled, subtly leaning into her and stiffening at the title. “I just work here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter named after ‘Fix You’ by Kurt Hugo Schneider and Austin Percario ❤️


	9. Young And Beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence & death.  
> I’ve never written a battle scene before, but I tried lol.

Athena was the most charming person that Helena had ever met. The Witch Queen had to work to be charismatic, to able to charm people into doing her bidding but Athena did it effortlessly and with kindness. She did not make people her tools. However, most of the councillors and King Barzilai did not believe that, and were deeply unsettled by the sudden and overwhelming outpouring of support for her after the near-revolution igniting speech given to the soldiers who were becoming more and more disillusioned with the establishment as the war battered on. They had prepared a speech for her, which Athena had taken it upon herself to ‘respectfully shove up their asses’ — afterwards she had looked the king and his councillors in the eyes and said ‘the only one in my head is me’, very publicly refusing to be their ventriloquist dummy.

Athena would let no one rule her mind. She took special care to ensure that her thoughts remain unfettered, she gave all her ear, but not her heart — her heart was Helena’s. She showed the utmost respect for those in power when it was deserved or earned, but she did not follow them blindly. She judged with logic and reason, and considered none to be her superior whatever their rank or station in life happened to be. Most people admired that. She, herself, admired that and aimed to be such a free spirit.

Even though she had no ambitions to be royalty at all, even Helena could agree with the masses and admit that the mage would be the most divine and beloved queen that the realm had ever seen. Many things had led to that day, for all of them. A silver-tongued princess from an ancient kingdom, a sly faerie, a broken crown, an abused sorceress, a vengeful queen, the strange mutation of time, and the unbreakable bond of two equally damaged souls. Together, they had all been part of writing a tragedy, had all been part of the fuse that lit the spark of revolution amongst the people. The war was no longer about merely killing a bloody tyrant, Athena had rather unwittingly given people hope that the war would change the status-quo. People were no longer fighting only for freedom, but for an actual malleable change in the order of things in a world where starvation and obesity and homelessness and excess wealth somehow existed simultaneously. In a world where children went without education and the sick without healthcare whilst the wealthy basked in privilege and became richer from the backbreaking labour of the poor. The war could destroy and burn every inch of the realm down, but that would never do the damage they two could do together, if they so wished it. A demon princess seemingly turning against the crown — but really just not allowing herself to become a pawn — and a once loathed sorceress with magical abilities that were unmatched by any other. People liked that. Liked them together, suddenly, because they were useful.

Revolution needs a spark, but even sparks eventually cease to burn at all. 

The sorceress had faced the exhaustion of war a thousand times but it was hard not to be unsettled by this peculiar sort of burnout in someone who had lived the most meteoric life. Athena was magnificently bright and sparkly, and had been since Helena had met her, but she had slowly begun to burnout as the war ravaged on — but after what had happened with Sophie and people’s sudden desire for her to be their queen it was like she had faded entirely to black. 

In the copious novels she had read, all too often the unsuspecting hero was driven to drink by the harsh realities of war and the crushing weight of blue blood as it coursed through their veins. Those things did not always drive a person to drink; more often they drove to exhaustion far quicker and more brutally. That tiredness is equally as debilitating as drunkenness. Burnout, Helena had learned, was slang for an inner tiredness, a fatigue of the very soul itself.

Certain members of the council may have begun to suspect her lover was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but in actuality she was more like a sheep pretending to be a wolf. One absolutely grief-stricken ordinary person who woke up one day and found out she was a princess with a destiny and from that moment on was expected to be someone, something, else entirely. She was clinging onto herself and fighting to remain true to her own heart, uncompromising in her morals, even when others tried to manipulate and use her to their own gain.

Standing in the tense council chambers as their armoured friends ran through their plan in its entirety, Helena stared at the girl at her side. She maintained her aloof mask. Jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. Silent, uncharacteristically still fingers, straight back. But her gaze wavered. Something in her eyes had gone far away. And just beneath her collar, the slightest rosy pink flush began to blossom, painting her neck and the tips of her ears.

She was clearly as terrified as she, herself, felt.

“Are you well, my love?,” she asked, pulling Athena to the side as they readied themselves to march upon the poppy field, where Ishara had saw a battle unfolding in her visions.

“Other than the fact I want to not be the me that I am right now?,” the demon laughed, weakly. Her grey eyes were still full of death and horror when she looked at her, but in them she saw her face reflected, and inside her eyes, she thought she could see some hope. A small little glimmer of it, anyway. Some small part of herself still trying to be optimistic, even after everything.

“You are still the same you as you were before.”

“Maybe to you, but to everyone else I’ll never be plain old Athena Spencer again. They’re always gonna look at me and see Princess Mirren, or ‘Queen Athena’. I’m always gonna be a novelty and the council will always try to use me as their pawn, then when I do as they ask or what is necessary — even when I don’t feel like it — it’ll never be good enough.”

“Giving people hope will always be more than enough—“

“It's cruel to give hope where none should be. It only turns into disappointment, resentment, rage — all the things that make this life more difficult than it already is. I’m not some revolutionary warrior queen, or whatever it is that they are calling me today. They’re standing with me now, there’s no one but you beside me. Even with an entire army at our backs.” She sighed, blinking back her tears. “The council trained me for this, insisted I learn and lead them and be the frontman of this entire operation, but by doing so they helped make their own doom because now people don’t want to fight for them...they want to fight for me, and I don’t want that sort of power. All I did was be myself, I didn’t ask to become their Katniss Everdeen.”

“No one ever asks to become a hero, Athena. Hero’s are made, and like it or not, you are about as heroic as it gets.” She sighed. “Perhaps purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us.”

She leaned in and pressed a kiss on top of the raven hair that she had meticulously braided for her to keep it from interfering in battle. With great effort, she pushed her fear away and held her love, knowing that words were just not enough to be a balm for all that she was feeling. Knowing that if she allowed her fear to surface it would get her killed in battle.

“Stay close to me, mm?”

“Always.” Athena offered a smile as the broke apart, it was small but it was something. “If you die, I’ll kill you.”

“Likewise,” she smirked.

Ishara had woken everyone after only a few hours of rest, telling them that the Queen was preparing her assault and that they had to be ready. Both their scouts near the border of the gigantic shield surrounding the city and her visions had confirmed it, but upon their arrival in the sea of red flowers she was not there. Her army was there, as were her lunatic cultists, but she was not giddily egging them on as Helena had expected...and that only unsettled her. She was either hiding, scheming, or fleeing, and not knowing which did nothing to calm her already fried nerves.

Battles had changed. Whilst the stench of death, fire, magic, and blood remained the same, everything else somehow felt different. There were no more battles between good and evil, as she understood the concept of both well enough to know that good and evil did not truly exist at all, universally. There were no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts took different forms and were difficult to recognise for what they truly were. And there were never really endings, happy or otherwise. The war never leaves. Things keep overlapping and blurring, one’s story is part of their friend’s story is part of many other stories, and there was no real telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil were a great deal more complex than a princess and a witch. And was the Witch not the hero of her own story? Was the stubborn princess not simply acting as a true princess should act? 

Though, perhaps, it was but a singular princess who would go to such lengths as to avoid being treated like royalty.

Their archers had began their attack, releasing their flaming arrows across the field. Using an ancient spell she and Altea had enchanted the silver tips of each arrow, allowing the fire to burn endlessly blue — as the hottest fires always those that burn blue. At the same time catapults and trebuchets launched more blue flaming barrages into their enemy as they fell and scurried to fire back, but without Magnus’ dictator-like leadership and his barking orders at them, many of them fell in the rain of flaming arrows.

With Athena at her side, they charged, swords in hand and their friends at their back. Like in any battle they had been a part of, bodies fell unceremoniously at every turn and magic flew. Using her sword, Athena would incapacitate rather than kill, slicing through unprotected tendons and breaking limbs with the boost of strength Helena had given her. Like always, they fought back-to-back, exchanging snarky comments when they could as if to make the hell unfolding around them seem less traumatic. The air became tainted with the coppery stench of burning flesh and bleeding wounds that were already becoming infected, a sea of bodies piling up amongst the carnage. In truth, Helena felt more like an ant on the battlefield of the gods. There was no room for pride or ego, and barely enough room for survival.

She was tired. She had not slept. She was cold, yet she suddenly felt like she was invincible. It was a wondrous thing, that battle calm that eventually kicked in. The nerves go, the fear spirits off into the void, and all is clear as precious crystal. 

Arrows and spears collided with an electrifying sizzle against the pink shield that Altea had cast above both her and Athena. Curses and screams and metal raking against metal and the crunching of bone filled the air, and through the sparking pink barrier she could see spears being thrown into the deeper ranks of their battalions.

She and Athena lunged forwards with their blades in hand, the impact against falling armoured bodies sending a brief burst of pain up her left arm, but the pain disappeared quickly, and she stabbed to her left with the point of her short sword. The golden tip tore into flesh and bone, and a soldier who had been attempting to grab Athena fell dead at her feet. Quickly, she jumped over the fallen woman and attacked the next man who attempted to take her place. Stabbing over the icy blue shield, her blade caught him in his throat, spraying blood over both of them. The fine mist, warm and bright red, clung to their armour as the man grasped at the blade deep in his neck. Helena tore it free to another thick gush of dark blood, his face palled and his brown eyes widened, hands grasping at the wound as he fell to his knees choking and gurgling on his own blood.

Death had always seemed so easy before she became a soldier. In the early days at the Witch Queen’s castle she would read stories full of brave warriors and assassins and how they would deliver speedy deaths, and then walk away. They would go to the taverns and drink with their friends, or go home to their lovers. They never said anything about how they felt afterwards. They took a life, and that was that. So easy. So...normal and unremarkable an occurrence. And yet she did not think she was ever going to forget how it felt to kill that man. It was one thing to cause a death, but another to deliver it. With hardly any pressure, or thought, she managed it. And she had felt every inch of the sword sliding into him. Even as the woman who could cause death with but a single touch, who had taken thousands of lives that she could not remember, she never took taking a life lightly — not anymore.

“Are you well?!,” she panted, taking a moment to raise a shield around them so they could catch their breath.

“That woman grabbed my wrist weird, I think it’s sprained but I’m good...are you?”

“I am uninjured. I am worried about why she is not here, though.” 

Sweat stung at her eyes as she wiped off her gorge-sprayed face with her gloved arm. All around them in every direction was nothing but a whirlwind of chaos and violence, pink and green magic exploding in the sky, blurs of vicious motion. Nothing could obscure the screams of injured beasts and dying soldiers, steel striking steel so loudly it rivalled the noise of a summer thunderstorm. Above the scent of sweat was the acidic smell of all pervasive fear, carried aloft from clashing bodies howled amidst a sea of scarlet liqiud which was being drained from friend and foe alike. The blood soaked amongst the once vibrant delicate red flowers, now trampled and withered in the ash choked air.

“Oh shit,” Athena gulped. “This...this is a trap, isn’t it? The bitch is playing us. We’re missing something here—“

Before she could finish the shield she was holding fizzled out, and her magic ceased to work at all. Pure instinct took over, she grabbed the mage by the hand and began running, frantically cutting down any who got in her path and dragging her behind her.

“Babe, what’s happening?!”

“She has spellbound us,” she yelled, glancing at Altea and Ishara who had also begun retreating. “There must be runes somewhere on the battlefield, perhaps even on a soldier—“

“Oh, Little Light, look how pathetic you are.” The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, ringing in her ears as many of those wearing her colours dropped dead of their own accord. “Leading your beloved like a beast by the noose all the way to her death so blindly, how shameful of you.”

She yanked Athena closer to her by the injured wrist, far rougher than she had actually meant to judging by the pained yelp the tug elicited, but without her magic to protect her she did not know what else to do.

“She’s shameful?,” Athena retorted. “You’re the one who is hiding, bitch. Show yourself.”

Through the smoke and ash, she stalked toward them like prey, a wall of flame surrounding both her and Athena, cutting them off from the rest of the world. The situation was far too close for comfort — the last time she had been this way her love had almost died trying to save her.

“My dear, I must admit I was quite inspired from that wonderful speech you gave. Cursing the very council that you fight for, taking in my stray pets and moulding them to your own will. Playing everyone at their own game far cleverer than even I ever did. It seems you have realised that you cannot argue with all the fools in the world, that it easier to let them have their way, and then twist them to suit your own ambitions when they are not paying attention. You could set this world ablaze and the rodents would thank you for it. You could call that fire rain and they would believe you.”

“How did you—“

“I have eyes and ears everywhere,” the Queen replied, casually, finally emerging from the shadows enough for them to see her face. Pale skin and darkened eyes and lips, she looked cold, cruel, like a living sword. A merciless tyrant, the false heiress to a bloody throne. “The desire to rule runs in our blood, and I see I have underestimated you. You are not the weak little morsel you wish everybody to believe you are.”

“The only thing I desire is peace and equity. I want to end the oppression that is trapping people in an endless cycle of poverty and death, making them vulnerable to tyrants like you just because the blue bloods think they are different from us. That isn’t right. Any history book can tell you, it will end poorly. I’m going to make sure it changes. That is what I care about.”

“That sounds like ruling to me.” She was mocking her, trying to make her crack. “The truth does not matter, it only matters what people believe, and you have managed to convince everyone that you care nothing for power, that you are inherently different from me. The truth is we are not that different, Athena, we are but a singular beast hidden behind a different mask. The same blood flows through our veins, the same innate desire to burn this world to the ground drives us—“

“Shit, lady, you need some serious therapy and maybe some horse tranquillisers whilst you’re at it,” Athena blurted out. “You like to act as if I'm nothing, but yet I can still make you fall. We can make you fall. And you’re scared. You should listen to your own advice and harden your heart, because your fear is showing.”

“My dear, you of all people know that one appears weak for one reason and one reason alone, and that is because they desire to.”

As she began to circle around them, Helena moved away, slowly pushing Athena behind her as she sized them up. Enjoying the hunt. She would actually prefer death to the cage of flames they were trapped in, to the twisted obsession of a mad queen. It was not death that she feared, not anymore. She had faced dying at her hands too many times to be afraid of it. She was afraid of submission. She had lived a life beaten down in the dirt, running through the shadows, in a silky dress, and in a cell...and she would never submit again. Not to anyone, ever.

Behind her, she could feel Athena rummaging in the small pocket of the undershirt she wore beneath her armour. She was moving slow enough as not to alert the queen to her moving at all, and Helena had not the faintest idea what she was doing...she never kept anything in her pocket.

“Did I not tell you to never soften your heart, little light? Look where such weakness has lead you. Kneel to me and perhaps your lover will live to see the dawn.”

“Never,” she spat. “I know now that power without any sense of moral direction is the most dangerous force in the world, and I will never kneel to you again. I lost everything I ever had because of you—“

“Did you? You are the one who followed orders, you are the one who slaughtered thousands upon thousands of innocents...even your whore’s own people,” the queen sneered.

“Call her that one more time and I will cut out your tongue and feed it to you!,” she snarled. “And, yes, I did kill in your name. I know life all too well now, so I know what I did was wrong. I am not who I was, but I know who I am now. I am not a rat anymore, nor am I your general or your apprentice or your weapon to abuse as you please. I am Helena Klein, and now I have too many ideas to count, and I am worthy of the love she gives me and the friendships I have formed. Freedom, revenge, liberty, everything that fuels the sparks within me, and the resolve that keeps me going. I will spend every moment of my life redeeming myself from my poor choices when I was your chess-piece, but I will not be held prisoner by those choices. Not anymore, never again.”

“Everyone is someone else’s pawn, you bloodthirsty beast. Even the whore knows that, one would think that you would have been smart enough to figure that out by now, too.”

Before anyone could speak again, Athena had pulled out the small wooden box she had taken from the hall of records, and Helena did not have the time to see what was inside before something hard was pressed into the space between their joined palms. Athena gave her a hard tug and jumped straight through the wall of fire — from which they tumbled into the most undignified heap at Ishara’s feet, unburned and surrounded by the oddest red coloured glowing thread of magic that spiralled its way around their joined arms and pooled directly over their hearts.

“Oh shit! The fuck?! It actually worked! It fucking worked!,” Athena gasped, breathily, just staring through the flames at the Queen, who was staring back at them in an equally bewildered state. “Fuck, yes!”

“You mean to tell me you dragged me through fire without knowing if we would be protected?!,” she hissed, fighting back both a laugh and the urge to lecture her about being impulsive. “Have I ever told you how unspeakably glad I am that we are not enemies?”

“Nah, but that is very sweet of you, babe.” Athena winked at her, and for some odd reason that she could not quite place, it felt almost as if she could actually feel how amused and proud of herself she was — and even how it was just now dawning on her that it was in fact an extremely dangerous thing to do, after the fact. It was more than just being able to read what she was feeling, but as if she could actually feel her feelings with as much unambiguous clarity as if they were her own...perhaps with even more clarity than her own. As if they were communicating on a wondrous new level that she had not even realised was possible. 

“Come, my daughters, get to your feet,” Ishara urged, despite her own obvious confusion at what she had just witnessed.

“What is this sorcery?!,” the Witch Queen shrieked, her petulant teenage-like irritation making both her and Athena laugh. The very woman who had declared that they were nothing more than distractions for each other, distractions that would get each other killed, was looking at them absolutely baffled by what she had witnessed. Magic where there should be none but hers. But with their hands entwined, their fingers lacing, until their bones were woven together, she had been proven wrong. 

Love was their greatest strength.

Helena felt as though they were embracing each other within the sanctuary of their thoughts, holding each other with an intimacy no physical embrace could ever hope to replicate, allowing their identities to entwine entirely. The sort of comfort it provided was a simple one: she was not alone, she felt Athena within her. She was with the one who cared for her, and who understood every fiber of her being, and who would not abandon her even in the most desperate of circumstances — feeling closer to her than she did even whilst they made love, which she had not even realised was possible even possible to be.

“Weakness is always acceptable and forgivable around family. But not when lives and wars hang in the balance, my dear,” Athena grinned, mocking her proudly, “we appeared weak because we wanted to...and you were stupid enough to fall for it.”

The fire began to die, flames reduced to embers, and judging by the look of sheer panic upon the ashen face before her it was quite clearly not by the Witch Queen’s will. But Athena was still there. She would never leave her. Even though she did not tell her to continue holding her hand out loud, she heard her say so in her heart...and even though she had not the faintest idea what they were holding or what in the spirits name was happening to them, she listened, and she trusted.

Spells were angrily thrown their way, but they ricocheted off of some sort of invisible barrier, bouncing back so the queen had to dodge them in order not to be hit. Something was protecting them, protecting the group of their friends gathered behind them as the battle began to dwindle around them.

It was rather comical, to see the only one not spellbound flailing around mid temper tantrum like one with mere fledgling magic. 

“A queen without supporters is hardly queen at all,” Helena taunted. “Face us, Witch Queen!”

“You wretch!,” the Queen spat. “Stop using your demon whore as a crutch. Let go of her hand and we shall see how brave you are. Stand on your own two feet for once.”

Iseul fired an arrow at the Queen’s chest, but she effortlessly sidestepped the blow. More arrows from both Iseul and Reiner were fired, all to no avail. Using her magic, that was seriously beginning to flicker and spark wildly out of control, she batted each of them away and laughed at them.

“The crown, Helena,” Altea whispered. “Our only option is to destroy the crown. We have to get close enough or our magic will be of no use until we retreat.”

“That is suicide, even with this protective enchantment,” she whispered. 

“Allow me this honour,” Alain said, quietly. “Please.”

“No!,” she shrieked, far louder than she intended, frantically grabbing his hand with her free one. “I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself!”

“Helena, my friend, if my death will mean something then it is necessary—“

“Lovers quarrel?,” the Queen chuckled, despite the visible panic as her power began fizzling in her palms. “You really must learn to control your beasts, Athena.”

“Oh, go suck on a dick, Morticia.”

“We do not sacrifice lives, Alain,” Ishara said, pointedly ignoring the Queen and Athena’s crude remark as she rested a hand on Alain’s arm. “Yours will have meaning yet, but not if you fall here. We must retreat.”

“Retreat!,” Reiner bellowed.

For a moment she and the Queen stared at one another, both of them unmoving and unblinking, weighing their options. She was weakened, but still the most powerful person on the battlefield at that moment in time, whilst they were protected — and from what she could discern their friends had to be behind them and they had to be joined for the enchantment to work. Whatever artefact they were drawing from was clearly powerful but she knew that Athena did not know how to control it, she could feel her begging her to stay by her side. The Queen, on the other hand, whilst a powerful witch, was an untrained warrior...but her madness was what made her dangerous. Should she stay and continue to weaken, she would be defenceless and desperate. She was backed into a corner and she knew it.

Engaged in a fiery dance, the sorceress and the witch were linked through icy eyes and strong wills but separated by the subtle flickering of the magic barrier between them. At times they nearly touched, both nearly lunging to attack the other, taut, pale skin only a hair's breadth away, but then reality of the situation would whirl them apart, and they would withdraw from their defiant staring contest for a second to re-evaluate, only to realise once again that they really were both cornered.

“Before this is done I will force the both of you to witness each other being tortured and then I will look upon your mutilated corpses and smile. No matter how careful you are, both of you will die,” she hissed, her voice sharp as glass.

“Yeah, cuz making martyrs of people is such a brilliant tactic and couldn’t possibly backfire,” Athena scoffed just as she unceremoniously blinked away in a weak puff of pale blue magic and the smokey graveyard fell utterly silent.

—

She was irritated, angry that they had been hoodwinked, that her spells had been temporarily bound by her. Ashamed, even. Athena always told her that not being all-knowing was nothing that she had to be ashamed of, that the only way to lose any respect that was even worth having was actually having a chance to take action and not acting. She had done all that she could, they all had, and when they could do no more, they had made peace with their fate and did not needlessly rail against it. They did not cause more unnecessary bloodshed. It was wisdom, she realised, not weakness.

Helena sighed, every inch of her aching from battle as she lay down in her lover’s arms in bed beside the flickering lantern that illuminated the pages of the demonic history book she was preparing to read to her. The blankets felt like heaven against her skin, the soft fabric enveloping them both so that they were undeniably cosy. In her palm, the rare uncut gemstone that Athena had found on the island shone brightly in the darkness of the tent. Reds far more brilliant than even the most beautiful of rubies glistened between the hues of a midsummer sunset, catching the fire and casting a colourful shadow against the white canvas fabric of their tent when she held it in the light.

Ishara and Altea lay on their own bedrolls, not even pretending to be asleep or otherwise busy. The vague explanation Athena had given to everyone as to what the stone was clearly not satisfying their morbid curiosity, and she did not blame them. She, herself, was entranced by the gem, and her interest had piqued when Athena had told Iseul that he could not touch the stone without it burning his palm. Only she and Athena could touch it without being harmed.

“‘The original Soul Stone was a gift given by the gods to the first demon to walk the earth, Queen Lilitu. The rare dragon fire opal is the only one of its kind and was ceremoniously passed down through her descendants during their coronation, as only the true heir to the throne and their consort could touch it without branding themselves with a rune that condemned them to madness’— which explains so fucking much,” Athena read, soothingly combing her fingers through Helena’s hair as the sorceress snuggled her. “‘The heir and their consort would touch the stone for the first time in front of the public amidst a grand spectacle, as a way to prove that they were being ruled by those with a rare natural soul bond — due to the rarity of such a bond many heirs and consorts alike were very publicly condemned to slow descent to insanity when their palms were branded. Only five times in recorded history did such branding not occur, and the stone’s power went on to be unlocked in elaborate soul bonding ceremonies that traditionally took place on the third day of coronation celebrations’.”

“So...we bonded our souls?,” she asked, absentmindedly staring at the stone in her unburned hand.

Athena shook her head. “Our souls were already bound, all touching the stone did was temporarily show us how much deeper we could make the bond if we wanted to. I knew our connection was strong enough that we wouldn’t be hurt and that we could use it to keep ourselves safe, it was the only way she wouldn’t tear us apart in that moment, but I’d never take your choice away like that. Ever. Especially considering that royal soul bonds weren’t like the ones that the everyday people could form, these ones can’t be severed.”

“I do recall learning about such bonds from that scholar. One exchanges half of their soul with half of their beloved’s, yes?”

“Yeah, but those bonds were pretty much meaningless because they could be easily made and broken between anyone. To make one of those you didn’t need to actually be soulmates, the ritual made you into soulmates. To be accepted and bound by the stone you really, really, have to be deeply bound by the soul already — then when you do the ritual it...it’s like even though you’re still two separate people, you’re not. Your connection can manipulate things to an extent. Your heartbeat and your life-forces match up, breath for breath, from the minute your souls are bound.” She took a deep breath, staring into Helena’s eyes as it dawned on the sorceress what that meant. By leaving it unsaid her silence spoke volumes. She understood.

“One cannot live without the other...”

“To lose the soul bound to yours on that level would be an unbearable pain. The ancients, we...um...we believed that it was a mercy from the gods themselves. To live and die with someone as equals was considered to be the greatest honour in our society.” Athena’s fingers gently brushed against the inky pages of the book she was looking at, big eyes studying the circular symbols written there intently.

She wanted to feel that connection all the time, to have her love in a way so intimate that she was inside of her always. Having been bound together by the magical stone for a time, she had been changed...made stronger. She had all but seen herself through Athena’s eyes and had never felt more complete or at peace than she had done as their souls had danced beneath the surface of their skin.

“And...do you consider it to be so?,” she asked, quietly, not caring that Altea and Ishara could overhear everything being said in the suddenly extremely confining communal living space. Ignorance was a burden she did not intend to carry where her soon-to-be-wife was concerned, and asking was the only way to find out. The trick to finding peace in a time of outright war was to allow oneself to find little happinesses in the brief gaps that existed between the endless stream of disasters.

Athena smiled, her dimples showing on her exhausted face and the sadness in her eyes slipping away. “I don’t believe in the gods, but I do believe in the magic of the stone and the honour of being worthy of it...but it’s a lot to ask or expect from someone. I’d never, ever, ask so much of you—“

“But say you did not ask and I happened to want to bind myself to you in such a manner, would you have me?”

The mage leaned in and gently pressed a kiss on her lips, her dainty hand a soothing cradle again her jaw. “Of course I would. Va’as nësaanha mrí zëho’v.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Sun and moon of my life,” Athena whispered.

“Du bist die Liebe meines Lebens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter named after ‘Young and Beautiful’ by Lana Del Rey ❤️


	10. Faded

The frantic wails of injured beasts rang through the ash filled air, mighty dragons and the warriors commanding them in the skies crashing into the stormy sea, shot down so effortlessly by small handheld weapons with the power of a thousand arrows. The island was burning, a great empire collapsing.

Servants and nobles alike ran rampant throughout wide marble hallways lined with gold and precious gemstones, their screams ricocheting through the idyllic palace by the sea. Soldiers in serpent-like headbands and golden uniforms fired their weapons at everyone who crossed their path, cutting them down with a single shot of metal that cut through soft tissues so effortlessly. The heels of military boots, striking marble floors, made a sound like thrown stones. They smashed golden statues of the old gods and set precious paintings ablaze, pocketing the magnificent jewellery from the well-to-do corpses that littered the hallways.

The royal family and a small group of retainers were herded into a small room with no windows. Terrified little boys in white nightshirts clutching at dolls carved from wood and small pet dogs huddled beside their mother, an imposing looking woman in an amethyst tiara that complimented her long mauve gown and ornately braided dark-blonde hair that almost touched the floor. A bear-like bearded man whose piercing silver eyes stood out against his raven hair and the glittering sapphires that decorated his crown stood beside his wife, his silken attire the type of finery that only a king could wear. A group of ladies in waiting huddled in a corner, most of them scared teenagers, who cried out for their mothers and their fathers. And a powerful sorcerer with mismatched eyes and glorious dark skin stood at the side of the king, a little girl wrapped in a gold braided towel having clearly been disturbed from her bath in his arms.

The serpent-like soldiers stood at attention in front of the family, a ponytailed general that bared an uncanny resemblance to the king grinning so widely that every one of his teeth were on display. Animalistic in his looks and his mannerisms, a monstrous hunter hungrily sizing up his prey.

“Kneel or bleed, your majesty.”

“I kneel to no one.”

“Very well then. Grand Duke Astaroth, high king of the known realm, the united army of the domains have reached a verdict: for your crimes against the people and the wars waged in the Eclacielian Territories, it has been decided that you and your family have been sentenced to death by firing squad—“

“What?!,” the king bellowed, ignoring the wails of all others in the room. “The gods—“

“The gods rule us still. They have come down from the heavens and they are no longer kind, father,” the general barked. His bastard son, still a mere boy; lanky and with the patchy facial hair of youth around his childish jawline. A boy who was not born evil. No one is born that way, just like no one is born alone. They become that way, through choice, ambition, and circumstance. No one is born a monster. Monsters are made.

Anyone can betray anyone. Even one’s own blood.

“My children—“

“Their crime is their blood, but not even royal blood can stop a bullet.”

The young general fired his weapon at the king’s chest, a tiny piece of metal piercing the demon straight through his heart and then his head. His life over before his corpse had even hit the floor. A mighty king with near god-like power, dead like any other mere mortal. The cool ring of jewelled metal clattered against the polished floors, glinting fiercely in the flickering torchlight. A crown dripping in royal blood. A hollow, headless symbol of autocratic power, waiting for its next victim, its shadow twisting on a bed of flame.

Screams reverberated off of marble walls and the firing squad began to carry out their duty. The queen was hit only once through her head, her tiara unmoving as her corpse landed in a disheveled heap on top of her husband’s. They fired their handheld weapons at terrified children as they ran around the room in search of escape, hitting one little boy straight through the skull and the others in their torsos and limbs. Ladies in waiting fell next, hit one by one, multiple shots fired into the bodies of the screaming teenagers.

The sorcerer had been hit by a ricocheting bullet that had bounced off of one of the prince’s jewel incrusted nightshirts, the wound was small but it was an undoubtedly fatal one. He had been hit in his femoral artery whilst shielding the little princess in his arms from the gunfire. Dark red blood poured from the wound in the demon’s thigh, and the child in his arms screamed.

“Hush now, my dearest, Mirren,” the man winced, using the last of his energy to cast a portal. “You must listen to me—“

“Carrie! Blood! Bleeding!—“

“You are both children of fire, both of you as strong and destructive as your flame, but your mate will not be like the others before her. Fire can destroy, and fire can kill, but it can also create. Forests that are burned in the heat of summer will be green once more come spring, better and far stronger than they were before. Her flame will build and bring roots from the ashes of war. Yours will quieten battlefields. The smoke will clear, and the soldiers, of both sides, will return home after a few hundred years of oppression, and together you will bring peace. Find her. Unite. Do not die fighting, do not—“

“Carrie!”

“My heart is always with you. I bid you never forget how loved you are, my princess. Remember from which you came. You must forge the crown yourself - and wear it. Or not. I do not know which path you will walk, but I hope you become queen one day. Imagine what you could do then, little dragon? The queen of hearts.”

Soldiers began to run towards the dying man, so he did all that he could, he threw the child through the weak portal as if she were a mere sack of flour. She screamed for him. Not for her mother or for her father, but for her dear tutor, for her ‘Carrie’, as she tumbled into a strange world.

As she fell she hit her eye on the corner of a large metal dumpster kept in the back alley of a busy city street, her right arm snapping into an unsightly compound fracture as she hit the icy tarmac face first. Her screaming stopped immediately and she sat there, numb, traumatised, whimpering quietly for her tutor in a language that no one else could understand in a world she did not know. Just a baby, with no one in the world to look out for her and a destiny that no one could possibly begin to understand. Left there to rise. And rise alone. Until the day that she was called home once again.

—

Helena cringed at the memory being shared with her, the red magic that was temporarily binding her and her love together whilst the stone was in their hands feeling warm against her skin. Everyone has scars and ghosts of their own. Some drove them to war, and some were because of it. She knew the sting of both.

Athena was silent. Reducing her to tears was one thing, but reducing her to silence was worse. That meant her heart was breaking. She was like an earthquake in tiny woman form, she would break apart anything and everything in her way to get what she wanted — silence was the one thing that did not suit her. Even if they had not been connected Helena would have been able to see her pain, but she could feel it within herself. She could feel the emotional hurt as a throbbing pressure behind her ribcage, her breath feeling more like two hands squeezing her neck rather than the thing that was sustaining her life.

“The sunset was pretty that night,” the demon whispered. Grey eyes flickered out to the now naked trees. But she was not looking at the dead fallen leaves that surrounded them. Her gaze was in the past, to something more painful. “I guess it’s true what they say.”

“What do they say?”

“That clear skies can be misleading.”

In the hours that they had been practising utilising the soul stone that day they gotten good at drawing on their connection to calm each other down, wordlessly. Even before having the stone they had never had any issues with that, so it was no surprise to either of them that it had been so easy for them to master that aspect of what having a permanent soul bond would be like.

Ishara had told them to practise using the stone before performing the ritual that would irreversibly bind them together, had told them to study exactly what the stone could do before committing themselves wholly to such a powerful object. She had a point, as the stone did far more than just bridge their souls together. It protected the bond between them — or the hosts of its own magic, rather — as they had seen in battle. It allowed them to share memories, feel each other’s emotions, and communicate through their thoughts. And it, somehow, increased the strength of Helena’s magic and made it easier for her to keep under control — it made drawing on their connection far easier.

“What were those strange weapons, my love?” It took her a full ten seconds before she realised it had begun snowing, washing her clean of her boiling anger at the man who had slaughtered her lover’s family. The first snow of the winter and they were still embroiled in the siege. People were not supposed to be at war for so long.

“Some sort of gun,” Athena replied, her brow furrowing, snowflakes landing in her hair and eyelashes. “They didn’t look like the ones we had in the other world, though. That was some real Star Wars type shit.”

“And what Carreau said...”

“I loved him so much but I’m not gonna lie, I’m getting real sick of his cryptic bullshit.” 

“As am I...but any great seer must talk in riddles. It seems to be part of the job description.”

They both shared a giggle at that, both sets of eyes locked onto the threads of magic binding them together. She did not want to let her go, did not want to be alone with herself inside her own head, but they had promised Ishara not to do the rite that would make the connection permanent until they were well versed in the powers of the stone. She just adored being able to feel everything that Athena felt towards her. She had always told her that she saw her as whole, that she was worth loving, that she was the best person she had ever known in either world, and, of course, Helena had believed her. But actually feeling the intensity of her love’s adoration was an entirely different thing. It made her want to strip her bare and make love to her for hours and hours on end every single time she felt it — she could not even begin to fathom how she would function once they were bonded for good. Having to work through that intense desire to indulge in the simple pleasure of having her in that way every moment of every day was already about as difficult as fighting the war, how she would do that once they were bound, she did not know. They had already made love whilst bound — convinced themselves that it was purely for scientific purposes and not wasting valuable research hours, of course — and stopping had been the most impossible thing. They had worn themselves out. Truly worn themselves out and their skin had clung to the tell-tale signs of their shenanigans for so long afterward that Iseul had teased them absolutely relentlessly about their obvious tryst in the woods.

“I can hear all the old lady comments that you’re dying to make right now,” Athena laughed. “Lemme just remind you that, technically speaking, my body is younger than yours because of the time difference or whatever.”

“Technically speaking that is something an old woman in denial about her age would say,” she smirked, squeezing their joined hands.

“Is this what my life is to be like? My soulmate teasing me endlessly about being short and old?”

“Not quite. I shall also be your wife and be teasing you for being both short and old.”

“You’re old. I’m not even thirty yet.”

“We must find out your real birthdate so that every year I can mark the occasion with a cake. You told me that in Chicago birthdays are marked with candles on cakes, but I am afraid that I would burn down Reiner’s castle if I tried to light more than a thousand candles on one of Solaire’s cakes...and that is assuming she could bake a cake large enough for such a number.”

Athena nudged her arm, and Helena nudged her back. Then before she knew what was happening they were wrestling across the grass like a pair of delinquent children, the stone still held firmly between joined hands. Playfully, Athena licked her face, in a way that was so unsexy that the sorceress could not stop herself from laughing until she got the hiccups. Had anyone else to lick her face she would have been disgusted, but somehow having Athena’s saliva dripping down her cheek did not turn her stomach — it only made her laugh harder. She wiped her face with her long sleeve, laughing so hard her stomach muscles began to hurt. If her entire life had to be that way, loud laughter and bold action and the kind of bone deep exhaustion one always felt after a hard but satisfying day, she would be beyond content for the rest of her days.

As much as she wished she could stay alone with Athena in the falling snow, undisturbed by the war or by anyone else’s expectations, she could not. So, being the vastly more responsible of the two, she hauled the smaller woman to her feet from their spot beneath the large naked branches of an oak tree, the bright red glow of their bond lighting their way back to the tent city that had been their home for weeks.

Helena always tried to find the beauty in wherever she happened to find herself, but she could not find anything beautiful there, not when the smoking, orange fires spread on for miles in the darkness. The contrast between the the mighty city and the tent slum set her teeth on edge. The symbolism was really quite ridiculous. This was the world that Athena was trying to change, the world trying to kill them and everything they cared about. Now she could truly see what she was fighting against and how difficult, how impossible, it would be to win. She had never felt smaller than she did then, walking through the encampment, with the great bridge leading towards the glittering city looming a few miles ahead of them. It looked ready to swallow them whole. But she knew they had to try.

Things there had become so dire that the council were considering abandoning the siege altogether, to declaring the Capital lost. And they would have, were it not for Athena, Ishara, Reiner, and the newly arrived Iraia Idreis’ adamant refusal to give up upon the citizens trapped beneath the dome-like shield. Council meetings had turned into a civil war, one which Athena continually triumphed in, despite how she continued to grieve for her best friend. Certain councillors called her a lunatic, but Athena did not care. When Helena had asked her why, she had told her that as long as people are going to call you lunatic, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. Intentions were the only thing the old politicians cared about. They tried to make everybody think that they cared about what Athena did, but they did not. They did not want her to act a specific way, they wanted her to think a specific way. So she would be easy for them to understand. So she would cease to pose any sort of threat to them. ‘Other people’s approval is always overrated’, Athena had whispered to her during one meeting, ‘Approval and disapproval alike satisfy those who deliver it more than those who receive it.’

Can someone be truly good if they never have the opportunity to act badly? The mage had the opportunity to act badly and overthrow the old king and his favoured councillors with the support of the army and prominent nobles behind her, but she did not. She was a natural born leader if there ever was one, a politician hating one, but a leader none the less — and everyone knew that they needed her, even Barzilai and his cronies. If they wanted the Witch Queen dead without picking up blades and charging into battle like true blue bloods did, themselves, then they needed Athena. The army was hers, regardless of what colours they wore or what domain they called home. The common man liked her and what she stood for. The ferociously antiestablishment princess forging her own invisible crown, fighting for far more than ending the life of a tyrant. For the first time in history there was a leader who was truly fighting for the good of the people and not trying to line their own pockets with the spoils of war, and the soldiers respected that.

History favors the underfoot and the oppressed, so it seemed. The years are long, but eventually, always, fortunes start to shift. The people rise. Such is always the way of things. Either let change come willingly, help it along, or face the wrath of such force. Athena knew that better than any other. She had told the councillors who opposed everything that she believed in and everything that their armies wanted to fight for, that it might not be them or even their children. But the day would come when revolutionaries stormed the gates of their castles, broke their precious crowns, and slit the throats of their descendants as they begged for the mercy they would not show now to the struggling masses. 

The war had always been about far more than one woman, but it had taken but one woman for that to become understood on such a grand scale. Was there any point in fighting to restore a world where very few had the opportunity to thrive and grow old with grace and in good health? Where magic users were stigmatised and exiled from their homes? Where scholars and nobles alike kept knowledge locked up and out of reach of the every day person? No. No there was not. As beautiful as the world was, it was just as dangerous. People who were not useful, people who refused to evolve, they made it dangerous. 

The fairytale belonged to the poor and the suffering, after all. She knew of no fairytale which upheld the tyrant or took the part of the strong against the weak. A fascist fairytale is an absurdity, and ambition without direction was like milk without a cup. Useless.

Helena knew that it took all of her love’s strength not to viciously snap at the cowards who would never see the front lines or send their children to fight. Their war was being paid for in the blood of the poor and downtrodden, by people just like Helena who had no option but to conscript due to lack of education and means to do anything else — victims of an empire that was well past its expiration date and needed to fall in order to stop history from ever repeating itself.

“The longest siege in the other world lasted for twenty-two years,” Athena commented, pacing around the makeshift women’s dormitory in the council chamber. Ishara still would not allow them to return to their own tent, insisting that it were safer if she, Athena, Altea, and Iraia continued to room together. 

“Twenty-two years?!,” Altea choked, shakily setting down the warm mug of elderflower tea she was sipping on whilst immersed in her studies of Carreau’s writings.

“I learned about it in High School. In the 17th Century, the Seige of Candia was a battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian ruled city. After the Knights of Malta attacked an Ottoman convoy, the Ottoman’s responded by sending 60,000 troops to Candia, where the Knights had landed with the loot. The Ottoman forces were ultimately successful, but the Venetians held out for twenty-two years,” Athena explained, idle hands moving to run through her disheveled hair. “Ishara, please tell me that we aren’t gonna be stuck here for two decades? That by sticking this out well into the winter we’re actually achieving something? It’s been two weeks since our last battle and she has gone radio silent. What else can we do if it’s apparently still too dangerous to have Helena break the shield and then storm the city?”

“I would not have supported your desire to remain here and fight for the city if I did not feel it were the most prudent choice, Athena,” Ishara soothed, placing both of her hands on the frazzled girl’s shoulders. “I understand that you want so badly to stop. You want to stand still without killing yourself or someone else. But that is not possible, my girl. You must keep going, you must hurt yourself to save yourself, hurt others to save others.”

“Hurt Helena, hurt you, hurt Reiner and Saerys and Iseul and August and Altea and Alain and everyone stupid enough to follow me.” Athena sighed, the weeks of near total sleep deprivation and stress showing on her delicate features. Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she had been avoiding it by not sleeping. What a person did when they were in pain said a lot about them, and she had turned her pain into the fuel she needed to help people. “I'm afraid of failing. I'm afraid of letting this opportunity pass us by, or of refusing to abandon a sinking ship. And I'm afraid of what happens if nothing in this world ever changes, if another Witch Queen is allowed to be born and people have to suffer through the same shit a few hundred years from now because we were too weak to make the changes that need to be made in order to stop that from happening.”

“That is a lot of responsibility to carry, especially after everything that has happened recently that you are not allowing yourself to process in its entirety—“

“I have to take responsibility for the future, not the past. The past may torment me but it can't hurt me the way the future can.”

“Fear can be a good thing. Fear does not let you forget what you care about. Your eldest brother, Orias, may have been born to rule, but you were meant for it — whether you sit upon a throne or not. Power is a dangerous game but a healthy dose of fear is what makes one a truly great leader.”

“Its the work that matters, Ishara, not the individual who does it.” Athena rubbed her temples and then pinched the bridge of her nose as if to fend of a headache. “Are you afraid?”

“For all my strength and all my knowledge, make no mistake; I still know the meaning of fear. Is that, in the end — that capacity to hurt — not the most essential ingredient for a ruler?”

“The world pauses for royalty and deformity alike, and sometimes I can’t even tell the difference anymore. All I know for sure is this: The real wickedness of people is that our power breeds stupidity and blindness.” She sighed again, almost falling asleep on her feet. “I feel like I’m playing hide and seek but I’ve forgotten to ask anyone to look for me...”

“Are you okay?,” Iraia winced.

“I don't have a bullet in my head, do I? So I'm fine,” Athena sighed, unintentionally snapping in her exhaustion. “Shit, sorry. I’m fine. I’m totally fine. Just ignore me.”

“What is a bu-let?,” the elf asked.

“It’s...it’s nothing good. Don’t worry about it.”

“Athena, you need to sleep,” Ishara sighed, carefully leading the exhausted woman towards the bed she and Helena shared.

“Ishara—“

“Child, it is my job to look out for you and I will not stand by and watch whilst you lose your mind to this insomnia. You are of no use to anyone in this state. Now sleep, that is an order.”

“Its the middle of the day and technically speaking I’m the same rank as you are, so you can’t order me to do anything—“

“Technically speaking I can, as you have not yet officially accepted any royal title. Now rest, my girl. The world will not turn to ash whilst you sleep.”

Never underestimate the value of a mother in wartime, Helena thought. She has the most to fight for.

Trauma makes sleep a struggle. A traumatised mind is a tyrant, ruling mercilessly even when one is supposed to be resting. All tyrants were harsh, but that sort of fire was more ungovernable than most. She, herself, was seeing Sophie’s head be unceremoniously detached from her body every time she closed her eyes, so she knew Athena was too. Grief and rest do not mix either, whilst grieving one somehow wakes feeling even more exhausted than they did when they closed their eyes.

“Maybe we could go back to the island and see if there are any of those, um, those Star Wars-esque blaster gun thingys in the hall of records that we didn’t find before—“

“Athena, my darling betrothed. I love the sound of your voice but you must sleep,” she whispered, pulling her fiancé into her embrace and then dotting a kiss on the tip of her nose. She wrapped her arms around her and held onto her tightly for a few seconds before her body relaxed. Her breaths tickled her neck, and Helena closed her eyes, letting herself finally relax as she buried her face into the crown of her head. She smelled like jasmine oil and fruity soap, like home and like safety. “I shall fend all of the bad dreams off if they come to torment you.” 

“With what?” 

“My bare fists and rock solid muscles, obviously.”

Athena smiled and nodded, sleepily tracing tight little circles over the back of Helena’s hand with her fingertip. “Promise you won’t leave? I’m...I’m scared. I see her when I close my eyes...I shouldn’t feel guilty because I didn’t do anything, but I feel guilty precisely because I didn’t do anything.”

“It happened and it was awful. You cannot bear the weight of another’s actions. That is all there is. Do not confuse your grief with guilt, please do not...that is a dangerous road to travel.” She tucked her beneath her chin and slipped her fingers into raven waves, stroking through the wispy strands that surrounded her face in the way that she knew that she liked. “I will hold you in my arms and watch over you, always. I promise, my love. I have your back. When I first said that to you I did not mean only when it is easy. All the time. No matter what.”

“Nothing feels like its alright just now...nothing except us, except this. Its weird, well not weird, but I’ve been thinking about us and how I didn't get to choose the blood that runs in my veins, any more than you chose what happened to you before. You and I, we've become what we were made to become and we’ve risen together, regardless of everything else. It’s all just background noise.”

“This world could change in a thousand different ways but you and I will always remain the same.” She kissed the top of her head. “Now close your eyes, soulmate of mine. I am with you.”

“Will you promise to wake me for dinner?”

“As long as you promise in turn to not to eat another mashed potato sandwich, as your sudden obsession with the delicacy is becoming rather concerning.”

“I eat like a pregnant woman when I’m sad.”

“And when you bleed, and the week before you bleed, and when you are sick, and when you are happy—“

“For the record: carbs on carbs is just pure, unadulterated American genius, and it tastes really good,” Athena yawned, her eyelids growing heavier.

“Mhmmm. It was certainly something but I am unsure that I would call it genius. Disturbing, perhaps. Certainly not genius.”

“It....did...it...”

“Hush. Surrender to sleep, my love. I am here.” She kissed her head again, smiling at the sight of her half-heartedly attempting to fend off sleep in order to defend the rather odd dietary choices she had been making. It was impossible to deny that they were living in the oddest of days. Everyone was hurting and everyone was so exhausted that they did not even know how to function but somehow it was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness — even though life just was not the same as it had been once. It was wonderful in its own twisted and unique sort of way, but it was not the same. Maybe it was because Helena knew war well enough to know that no one survives in wartime unless they find some way to make wartime their home. She did not know when she had become wise enough to be the one welcoming war into her heart and attempting to make friends with it. Better to befriend the enemy, she figured, as there was no telling when something worse might come along and collapse the carefully built house of cards that was her sanity, her happiness.

What a mystery we are to ourselves, even as we go on, learning more, sorting it out a little. The further on one manages to go in life, the more meaning there is but the less articulable that meaning becomes. One lives their life, and the older a person gets — the more specificity they can harvest — the more precious everything around them becomes, seemingly of its own accord. A person’s life and times do not drain of meaning because they become more contradictory, ornamented by paradox, by the inexplicable. Rather the opposite, maybe. The less explicable, the more meaning that there is to be found. Wisdom, she had realised, is not simply the innate understanding of mystery. Wisdom, true wisdom, is accepting that mystery is far beyond the realms of understanding. That is what makes it mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Faded’ by Madilyn Bailey ❤️


	11. Fall On Me

Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or privileged; some are born definite in no particular way at all. People are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of them at least. Beautiful in the concept, if they’re lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as they start to flesh themselves out.

Helena’s life had taken so many twists and turns that it felt almost as if she had lived a thousand lifetimes within her almost thirty-three years. As a younger woman she had separated each phase of her life, old and new. But she had learned that that everything that had happened to her was all part of something bigger, one life, one story, and each day it got easier to let her life take her down an unexpected path. History is a long time in the making and she was happy, truly happy. Her joy was no longer but a single candle in the darkness, it was a sunrise.

“Are you nervous?,” Altea asked. The pink haired wizard didn’t look up from the complicated demonic runes that she was helping to carve into the damp soil beneath the burning fire trees that surrounded the secluded clearing deep in the forest on the outskirts of their camp. “To bind one’s soul irreversibly with another’s on such a level...it...it seems even more intimate than committing oneself in marriage.”

Helena smiled and shook her head, almost trembling with the excitement that had been bubbling up behind her ribs for what seemed like an entire age. “I can understand why it seems like a rather drastic commitment to make, from the outside looking in. But I have never felt such a sense of inner peace in knowing that Athena and I shall never be parted, that we will be bound in a way that none but the two of us can truly understand.”

“How romantic! They will write entire treatises on the sheer strength of ancient magic that it will require to perform such a momentous ceremony,” the wizard giggled, pink sparkly magic falling from her fingers and sprinkling over the dewy grass. If it was even possible, Helena would swear that Altea was actually more excited than she and Athena were. She had been so excitable that she had been acting like an exuberant puppy since they had announced to the council that they planned to bond their souls and bring the ancient magic of the soul stone into their armoury.

“I am curious as to how the two of you picked this location,” Iraia said, emerging from the trees so light on her feet that Helena was startled by her sudden appearance. In her arms were the traditional flowers that were present around the casting circle in ancient soul bonding rites. Orange lilies to symbolise confidence and pride. Cosmos to symbolise love. Dahlia to symbolise a lasting bond and connection. Hibiscus for unity and peace. Aster for wisdom and devotion. And Gladiolus for strength and integrity.

“Traditionally the rite was performed at sunrise, since the sun is yet to grace us with its presence performing it beneath a light source almost as bright as the sun itself seemed like the next best thing.”

“Ah,” the princess nodded as she began arranging the flowers around the circle that she and Altea had meticulously carved with an entire mandala of demonic symbols that were present in the ancient texts they had been studying. 

The three of them had been tasked with preparing the clearing whilst Athena begrudgingly dealt with political issues at Ishara’s request. Her love was so irritated with royal duties that she was considering officially accepting a title just so that she could no longer be roped into dealing with what she called ‘a bunch of magical baby boomers mid-male-menopause’...whatever that actually meant — Helena was so used to Athena’s bizarre way of speaking that she knew she would never truly understand what a ‘baby boomer’ was from her own experiences, but she had heard the term thrown around enough to know that they were soul sucking leeches. So whenever her betrothed complained she just nodded and agreed, pretending to follow the rant as best she could whilst holding her through it...knowing that they would soon be bound so deeply that she would be able to know exactly what she meant when using strange otherworldly slang was exhilarating. 

Once they were finished the clearing itself looked like something more brilliant than it would be had it come straight out of one of the fictional fantasy novels that resided in Reiner’s library. The bright hues of the flowers and runes giving off a faint but distinctive ruby red glow were striking beneath the gigantic flaming trees with thick sprawling branches that seemed to form a canopy over head, framing the full moon and a sky full of stars as it shone. It may have been a somewhat last minute preparation but it was by no means shabby or lacking in spectacle.

Helena had studied the history book with such intensity and had practiced reading the demonic script that Athena had taught her to read during their practice’s with the stone that she had been able to prepare the traditional drink that the soulmates had consumed before the rite took place. It was a bizarre mixture that smelled overly sweet from the berries and faerie bells used in it, presumably to mask the other bitter potion ingredients. Despite all of her research, though, she could not find anything that would prepare them for whatever the effects of the half-potion-half-tea like beverage. Even attempting an educated guess at what the ingredients would do to them was impossible, as she had never seen any of the same ingredients combined in any of her other alchemical textbooks. She should have been scared, but she wasn’t. The unknown — in this case, at least — was damned exciting.

Its was understandable why people believed the ritual they were about to witness to be so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. But Helena had realised that the truth was, that nothing in life should be so easily amazing as the average person thought that it ought to be. If that were the case then absolutely everything would be. It is the things that one has to fight for tooth-and-nail and struggle with before rightfully earning that always hold the greatest worth. When something is difficult to come by or so outside the realms of what is considered to be normal, it holds the greatest value in one’s heart, and then they will always do that much more to ensure that it is even harder — or in this case, impossible — to lose.

“You’re absolutely sure you wanna do this because it’s what you want, not what you think you have to do, yeah?,” Athena questioned, her big doe eyes scanning Helena’s face in that gently concerned way they always did whenever they were about to take a step within their relationship. Always sweet, always loving, always striving to ensure the sorceress was comfortable. “Like, this is the biggest thing we’ve ever done, so I wanna be entirely sure you’re completely at ease and don’t feel like you’re obligated to do it. You're the one who has to live with your choice, everyone else will get over it, move on, no matter what you decide. But you never will. This is forever.”

“I cannot recall a time in my life where I was more certain of anything, where I was so safe in the knowledge that the choice I was making was the right one.” Heat rose to Helena’s cheeks as they knelt down facing one another in the centre of the glowing casting circle, so that their knees were touching, mugs of the thick purple drink in their hands. “Are you at peace, my love?”

Athena beamed at her and nodded, vicariously. “Absolutely. This is exactly what I want, now and every day for the rest of our life, however long that may be.”

“Our life,” Helena sighed, happily, whilst raising her mug to that sentiment.

“Cheers, babe.” The demon playfully clinked the rim of her mug against Helena’s, the action sending an amused hum through the crowd of friends, councillors, and common soldiers who had gathered to watch the rite.

The warm and thick purple drink tasted like the boiling sugary mixture one made whilst making hard boiled candies. Overly sweet, sticky, but it went over remarkably smoothly despite the copious amounts of random ingredients the recipe called for, leaving the distinct tingling sensation in the mouth and throat that most other potions did as the magic within them was absorbed into the bloodstream.

Sitting her cup to the side, Helena picked up the protective wooden box that housed the stone and removed the glowing gem as carefully as she could. Out of the corners of her eyes she could faintly see soldiers craning to get a better look at it, and having heard some of the downright insane rumours about the grandeur of the treasure that had floated around the encampment it came of no surprise to her. 

Her heart began to race as Athena took her left hand, the stone held securely between their palms as the red threads of magic began spiralling up the lengths of their arms. In all of their practices the luminescence had never been so bright that it was almost blinding to look at directly, but through their studies they had learned that the brighter the glow the stronger the bond. 

They were from two entirely different worlds. Two entirely different times. Two entirely different people. But upon their coming together, they created — they found — their own path and together they had their own little world and in their own world, they were always the same. Everyone else in the world was outside of it — everyone else was over there. Away. And they together — they together were here. They were right here. They were the same. Since meeting her, Helena had realised that a person can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it some how will not mean as much as what they can have when they sit in front of one special person, not uttering a single word, yet somehow they are able to feel that person within the depths of their heart. She felt like she had known Athena for forever....for longer than forever. Perhaps for some people, ‘the point of no return’ in the relationship begins at the very moment their souls become aware of each others’ existence.

As the magic wound it’s way up their limbs, they shared a kiss, and the runes on the ground began to glow just as brightly, red and gold sparks fizzling from each symbol before exploding into huge beams of light and power cast directly into the sky above. Gasps and shrieks of surprised echoed through the clearing as the bright colours of a winter sunrise began to swirl across the endless night sky, the strength of the light magic that was performing their binding strong enough that it was setting fire to the darkness and obliterating the curse that seemed like it had been consuming the land for an eternity.

In the village that Helena had grown up in, they had said that the best kind of love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head at the end of a long day. But that was, as her love would proudly declare without a care who’s company she was in, ‘total bullshit’. The best kind of love is one that casts you off your feet and into the breeze, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a blazing phoenix; the kind of love that cuts you loose like a burning wildfire and you cannot ever will yourself to stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! Helena believed that to be the best sort of love; one that burns and flies, and makes one want to never stop running with it.

“My, my, Little Dragon...how you have grown.” The familiar male voice made them both jump, feeling each other’s bone deep shock as well as their own as ghostly figures appeared between the stone rim of the casting circle and the ceremonial flowers that circled it. She’d seen a few of them before from Athena’s memories and portraits from various castles around the domains. She recognised legendary dwarven, elven, and human monarchs. All of them almost entirely translucent but as impossibly regal in their glittering royal regalia as if they were as if they were living and breathing before them, falling to their knees in the sort of deep bows usually reserved for King Barzilai alone.

“Carrie?,” Athena gulped, her grip tightening on Helena’s hand as the sorceress soothed her through the bonding.

“It is unspeakably good to see you again, my dearest one,” he smiled, his mismatched eyes sparkling brightly as they flickered between the two of them, “and to be in the presence of your mate for the first time.”

Athena’s eyes flickered between Carreau and Helena, and the words ‘am I actually so sleep deprived that I’m officially losing my marbles or are you seeing this shit, too?’, ‘I’m fairly fucking certain that drink was fantasyland’s equivalent of acid...we literally just did acid and invited our friends to watch’, and ‘holy fucking shit, we’re tripping the fuck out in front of Ishara and are gonna get our asses kicked’ echoed across the bond. She couldn’t help but giggle a little at the absolutely endless bewildered squealing she was hearing, despite the fact Athena outwardly appeared to be utterly shell shocked. 

“Pardon her staring, we are pleased to be in your presence, too,” she said, out loud, squeezing Athena’s hand again.

“The reason the effects of the ceremonial tea are not included in my research is because it would likely render many to such a state of silence,” he smiled.

“So...um...not that seeing you again isn’t great and all but...uh...are we, like, psychic now?,” Athena stammered. “Cause, if I’m gonna be seeing dead people around every corner I’d kinda like a heads up.”

“All those gathered can see us and the effects are entirely temporary, my princess,” he replied, calmly, bowing his head in respect as he addressed her directly. “The tea combined with the runes and the stone ignited the final part of the ceremony. Bindings such as these were usually formed during coronations, had our home still existed in its heyday now the two of you would be anointed monarchs and the wisdom of some of the greatest rulers history had known would be bestowed upon you.”

‘Fuuuuck...I’m definitely tripping,’ Athena murmured through the bond, whilst nodding politely as Carreau spoke.

‘Behave yourself. You are are not intoxicated,’ she replied, revelling in the fact no one else could hear. 

‘Babe, the fuck? This isn’t normal. We’re talking to a dead guy right now! Just trust me, I was in a liberal arts college a few years ago so I know from experience that we’re definitely high right now.’

‘Surely my spells to keep you silent will work through our bond...’

‘I think the fuck not. Fight me.’

‘Hush.’

‘We. Are. Talking. To. A. Fucking. Ghost. How in the ever loving fuck are you not losing your shit right now?!’

‘I think that you are reacting strongly enough for the both of us, my love.’

‘There are like twenty horror movies I can name off the top of my head that says making friends with ghosts is a fucking horrendous idea. Should we, like, say a prayer or something?’

‘You are a demon, Athena. Calm down.’

‘I may be a demon but that doesn’t mean I run around haunting shit and possessing people with my poltergeist fam on a regular basis!’

‘Your— Your— You did not just say that. Oh, goddess give me strength.’

“May I present, Queen Hestia of the Dwarven Lands,” Carreau said, gesturing to a stalky woman kneeling to his right, oblivious to the continued freak out happening inside Athena’s head. She was young, no older than Altea was, but legends of the warrior queen had survived for hundreds of years since her death. Dressed in furs and her limbs dripping in precious gems that made Barzilai‘s attire seem like ordinary peasants wear, she was a vision. Thick red hair was braided down her back and draped elegantly over her shoulder, the perfect cushion for the bizarre looking rounded crown she had seen in every single portrait ever painted of her.

“To be a great leader and a strong woman, one must not fret for not knowing all of the answers, even when others expect them to be all knowing and all seeing. One does not always know who they are or where they are headed, exactly. Sometimes, it is enough just to know what you are going to do next, to have the best interest of the people and the kingdom at heart,” Hestia said, her accent every bit as thick and almost completely unintelligible as Barzilai’s was. What shocked Helena most, though, was when the legendary queen turned to her...and bowed. 

“King Idris Idreis, of the Elven Lands. Grandfather of the current monarch, Ishara Idreis.”

Instinctively, Helena glanced towards Ishara, who seemed just as stunned as she felt...which was a comfort. The man looked almost terrifyingly like Iseul, with his exact chiselled features set into a more aged face. Vibrant green eyes were surrounded by fine wrinkles, displaying the fact that the king had lived for almost one thousand five hundred years old.

“My ladies,” the king said, bowing even deeper at the waist. “I understand that the world is facing a great evil, as of today but it is imperative that you both understand that evil is but an act, not an appetite. How many have not wanted to slash the throat of some boor who offended them across the banquet room table? Every one of us has the appetite, regardless of her species and background. If one gives in to it, that act is true evil. The appetite is entirely normal, healthy even. The only way that we can live, is if we continue to evolve. The only way that we can evolve is if we willingly change. The only way that we can willingly change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed to things out-with the realms of what is known to us. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we continually throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourselves.”

They all sounded just like Athena did. Every great monarch who had gathered, every single one of them with decades, even centuries as reigning sovereign, whose achievements had gone down in history sounded more like Athena than anyone else. That same wisdom that silenced any given room when Athena spoke was present in their every word. Barzilai did not speak in such a way or carry himself with as much self assuredness, neither did Ishara, or Reiner, or the Witch Queen, or any other of the number of nobles and blue bloods that she had come to know. 

Glancing at Barzilai, Helena could tell he was angry, either his manhood or his crown so fragile that he could not handle seeing them being bowed to and worshiped by those who he probably thought were more his peers than theirs. It was then both she and Athena realised that the ceremony itself could be used as a weapon, if things became dire. Not only had it bound them irreversibly, the magic used had been so strong and restorative that it had also brought back the sun, summoned the greatest leaders the world had ever known, and had however unintentionally elevated their status amongst the ranks of soldiers who had gathered around to witness the event. A weapon is a tool, and if it happens to be naturally beautiful, then in the eyes of some it is beautiful purely because it is useful. After all, a sword that could not fulfill its function would be ugly to the eyes of the masses no matter how fair its shape, not even if it were adorned with the finest jewels and the most intricate engraving.

“And you, Carrie?,” Athena whispered, as the last monarch in the circle had bowed and finished speaking. “You’re not a king...”

“No, I am not,” Carreau said, smiling sadly at her. “I will speak with you plainly, as there is not much time and I recall how you admired those with the courage to speak frankly with you when you were a child. Regardless of who made you, you are my girl. You always were and you always will be...and I bid you never forget that or doubt how loved you are. Had my brother-in-law been any sort of father to you he would have been here to greet you, Mirren. Your soul would have called to he instead of I if it were him who you wanted to see...but here I am.”

“Please don’t— don’t...don’t leave me again,” Athena whispered, her bottom lip trembling. “I still need you. I’ve always needed you...I just...for a long time I couldn’t remember who I was or who you were, but now that I remember I don’t know how I’ll ever let you go.”

“Had I not been injured on the night our homeland fell I was secretly planning to disobey your father’s orders to ensure that I accompanied you to the other world, my dear one. You must know this. You must know that I would never have allowed for you to be abandoned as you were, left to have suffered as you did. I scouted the city of Chicago myself, planned a life that would sustain us until the time came that you were needed to return home. Such was always intended to be the plan...but life got in the way, as it always does when one plans ahead. I shall never be far from you, I never have been. Memory is always a part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our hearts pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work too. It keeps us who we are,” Carreau smiled, sadly. “You do not need me nearly as much as you think that you do, neither of you do. You have each other. You have your found family. Those hold more importance than anything else. Those are the things that you must hold close to your heart as you let me go.”

“You died for me,” she whispered, grey eyes sparkling with unshed tears. 

“I was your protector and your caregiver. It was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make, my girl. Not for the crown. Not for my brother-in-law. Not for your place in history or your destiny. Just for you, my daughter, just you. Letting you die that night was unthinkable, you were a child whose only crime was the blood flowing through her veins. I could not allow you to pay for the sins of your father. I could not sacrifice you to potentially save myself, as such an act of cowardice is not sacrifice at all...it never is when it is the life of another at stake, it is just pure evil.”

Athena leaned into Helena’s arms, nuzzling against her for support. The sorceress pressed a kiss on top of her freshly washed hair, squeezing her tightly in her embrace and letting the stone fall onto the ground in front of her — no longer needing it to be bound by its magic. The pain that Athena was feeling was a pesky part of life. She had learned that it always feels like a stab wound to the heart, something she often found herself wishing that everyone that she cared for could all go without for the rest of their lives. Pain like that was a sudden hurt that cannot be escaped, that demanded to be felt like a toddler vying for a parent’s unlimited attention. But then, she had also learned that because of pain, one can come to feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom that is healing. Emotional pain always feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then the healing that comes after feels like the wind against one’s face when they are finally spreading their wings and flying through the air. Demons — like humans — may not have had colourful wings growing out of their backs, but healing was the closest thing that could give them that wind against their faces feeling.

“You need not worry about her,” Helena said, soothingly stroking her beloved’s hair. “She is strong and she will be well. We will ensure it. I will ensure it.”

“I know, Helena, I know,” Carreau smiled, fondly, the apparitions beginning to grow a little dimmer as the magic surrounding the ritual started to fade. “I have seen as much. The two of you will face many trials before this war is done, but if you stay on this path and continue to make the right choices happiness and prosperity like neither of you have ever known awaits you both on the other side.”

“Papa,” Athena whispered, her voice cracking. “I love you. Don’t go.”

“My being here was like a star falling from the sky and right into your hands, Mirren. One that has seeped through your veins and into your blood, that will always be apart of you. But now is the time that you must return that star to the sky, and I know that it hurts...and how much you have been hurting recently. But what is yours will always be yours. Whether I am up in the sky or right here with you. One day, though, you will never have to let me go again...but that day is not today, Little Dragon. You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms. And I love you, too. Always.”

Helena watched as Athena composed herself, feeling how she wrestled with the innate desire to start bawling and screaming about how unfair that it was, and the stronger desire to be strong and rational as the apparitions faded and the fire on the tree’s ceased burning and the magic around them fizzled out entirely. In that moment she realised that the real strength of any given woman is not measured merely by the impact that all her hardships in life have had on her; but the true strength of a woman is measured by the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her actions and who she becomes. Athena may have looked like the Witch Queen, but this was at the very root of their differences, this was the foundation that everything else was built upon.

“My love,” the sorceress breathed against her lips, as her eyes slowly adjusting to the sunlight just enough for their friends and the council to draw into focus. Everyone except Barzilai and his most loyal henchmen had fallen to their knees, gaping at them. Even Ishara was on her knees. 

‘Oh, shit. We haven’t just inspired a new cult, have we? This feels very cult leaderish to me,’ Athena murmured, through the bond. She was doing such a horrendous job at masking her confusion and discomfort that it was so comedic that Helena actually doubled over laughing, unable to stop herself.

‘Do you set out to be this amusing every time you have something to say?,’ she asked back, still giggling too hard to form words as she pocketed the stone and gently guided a very wide eyed Athena towards Ishara.

‘Only for you, babe...but this is fucking creepy. We should book it before this turns into a Manson Family situation.’

‘They have just witnessed a lot, let them adjust before you start plotting our great escape.’

‘Why is no one speaking? This is mad fucked up. Should we say something or—‘

‘No, you should not—‘

‘I’m gonna say something.’ Athena cleared her throat, and Helena held her breath. “So, uh, yeah, that was draining as fu—“ Ishara coughed, loudly, glaring at Athena whilst stifling a laugh and Helena felt her betrothed mentally slapping herself on the forehead as everyone around them started giggling. She was usually so silver tongued that the most eloquent of speeches could be improvised on the spot, but everybody could see how the sleep deprivation and grief had been taking its toll...even people who didn’t know her had been commenting on how frail she looked. “That was really — f word — draining. But uh, yeah, the sun is somehow back where it belongs and neither of us have a clue how it got there, but it’s there and, uh, you’re welcome, I guess. And...yeah...”

‘True words of wisdom, my love.’

‘Okay, it’s not one of my finest moments but I am secure in the fact that I have a talented mouth.’

‘Yes, yes you do.’

Regardless of her half-hearted and exhausted attempt at a speech, soldiers began cheering loudly and their friends embraced them tightly. Ishara held onto Athena longer than she had to when the mage buried her face in the Queen’s shoulder and clung to her, needing the sort of comfort that only a parental figure could give after saying goodbye to Carreau. Destiny was clearly very real. And she was about as mild-mannered as Athena was. She would come around and hit one in the face and knock them over and before they know what hit them, they are naked — stripped of everything they thought they knew and everything one thought that they did not know — and on the other side you may as well be left with a bloody nose, bruises all over your body, and naked. And it is always the most beautiful thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Fall On Me’ by Andrea and Matteo Bocelli ❤️


	12. Speechless

‘If he raises his voice at you one more time I will drain him dry,’ Helena growled, through the soul bond that danced beneath her skin and connected her very essence to that of her love. Athena may have been on the other side of the large circular tent, leaning casually against the cluttered war table and seeming direly bored as King Barzilai paced and yelled at the members of the council, specifically Athena, because his soldiers no longer bowed to him as he walked through the encampment.

She was a vision in the new outfit that Ishara had given her, that closer matched the deep colours and luxurious fabrics used in Helena’s own outfit. The black cap sleeved tunic was embroidered with deep wine red flowers and golden dragons, all stitched by hand around the seams of the garment by the finest faerie seamstresses. Long black satin fingerless gloves that almost covered the entirety of her arms were embroidered with gold stitching, that matched the gold stitching on the dark brown leather boots and belt that tied the ensemble together. At first she had cringed at the thought of looking like a princess, but once she had realised that she actually looked like ‘a badass’, whatever that meant, she was more than content to wear her new clothes without much prompting.

‘Let him have his tantrum, babe. There’s not much I find more amusing than watching men in positions of power make fools of themselves,’ Athena replied, unintentionally giggling out loud amidst their secret conversation. 

“Is there something you find amusing about my predicament, Athena?,” Barzilai snarled. He stopped pacing and turned to face Athena, his hefty frame and layered fur robes making him look like a giant in comparison to the raven haired demon’s dainty build. Despite the differences in size and temperament Athena was not in the least bit intimidated, and that was all that was stopping Helena from running him through with her blades.

“Other than the fact I told you that this would happen if you continued to separate yourself from the people and force them to bleed for you without first earning that honour?” She did not mean to say it aloud. Her mind was working so quickly that before she could even register that the words had slipped out, they had.

“You really do consider yourself quite the wise little scholar, do you not?”

“Wise? Nah. I simply know how to think.”

“You ought to mind your tongue, woman!”

“Is that supposed to degrade me, calling me ‘woman’ like its some sort of dirty word? If I require your advice I will ask for it, majesty,” Athena fired back, using the title as sarcastically as she was capable of.

“You are the most treasonous creature who I have ever crossed paths with. Prove your loyalty. Bow to me.”

“I bow to no man, least of all one so cowardly that he would abandon an entire city full of innocent people rather than pick up a sword and fight alongside his soldiers himself.”

Barzilai raised his hand and before anyone could react, his fist was travelling towards Athena’s face. As Helena sprang to her feet Athena caught the king’s wrist in her hand, enchanted by the mysterious powers of the soul stone she twisted and the sickening sound of breaking bones silenced the council chambers that had descended into a commotion. Everyone stilled and watched as Barzilai fell to his knees, thrashing wildly and gagging with the pain in his arm as Athena clung to the injury.

“The next time you raise a hand to me or anyone else will be the last time you have hands!,” the demon hissed, her grey eyes boring right through the pathetic looking dwarven king as he grovelled at her feet. The red magic of the soul stone that was now flowing through their veins danced in the air around her like a sparkling aura of flame that clung to her skin, ready to protect it’s host at any cost. As she released the arm he doubled over in pain around the injury, holding it close to his chest and whimpering pathetically as his cronies took a step back from Athena and their allies instinctively moved closer to her side.

Outwardly, Athena was so calm that no one else would be able to understand the extent of how badly she was freaking out internally. Behind that unsettlingly aloof mask panic and regret ran rampant, clawing it’s way into the furthest corners of her mind an finding footholds everywhere.

‘You had no choice, my love,’ she soothed, wrapping both arms protectively around Athena’s shoulders and gently yanking her further away from the injured king. ‘It was self defence. One hit from him would have knocked you out cold.’

‘Then why do I feel so bad?’

‘Because you are so gentle natured. Injuring another is not something you ever take lightly.’

“You think ruling is so simple, princess?,” the king huffed through gritted teeth as he pushed himself onto his knees, looking dangerously close to passing out with the pain radiating from the mangled limb. 

“I’ve never once claimed that ruling is easy, Barzilai, but something being difficult isn’t an excuse for doing a piss-poor job at it,” Athena replied. “Since being stuck here in this siege I’ve quickly come to realise that you and your lackeys over there don’t even consider your soldiers or anyone in the lower classes to be people at all, they’re just pawns to you. Your sacrificial lambs that you can decide where and when to slaughter, all thanks to the blood flowing through your veins and the so called ‘divine rights’ you believe that it gives you. There’s no honour in ruling through fear, you know. You’re no king. You’re a coward.”

“You will hang for this!,” the faerie councillor barked.

“No, she will not,” Ishara interjected as she calmly stepped between Athena and Barzilai. “I, as a leading member of this council, have become rather disillusioned with King Barzilai’s leadership and his favoured councillor’s persistently dishonourable displays of character we have all witnessed in the past few weeks. I hereby propose that we relieve them of their posts, for the good of the realm. All those in agreement, speak now.”

“Aye,” Reiner said, without missing a beat. His sentiment was echoed by a number of councillors standing on their side, loudly and without a note of hesitation.

‘Babe, what the fuck is happening?’

‘I...I think Barzilai’s outburst has just turned into a coup d’état.’ She soothingly stroked the upper parts of her love’s arms, moving her hands slowly over the black satin fabric of the new outfit that Ishara had gotten for her. 

“Alain, Saerys, August, and Iseul, you will escort Barzilai and his allies to the dungeons of Wolfson Castle,” Ishara commanded, turning to their equally bewildered friends. “Altea—“

“I will cast a portal,” Altea nodded.

“You cannot do this!,” Barzilai barked, wincing as Reiner bent down at his side to heal his injury before he was bundled away.

“It pains me to take such drastic action but for the good of the people I must.” Ishara kept her voice steady, like a mask of sorts. Watching her standing there so calmly the sorceress was drawn back to a late night conversation she had managed to overhear between the elven queen and her betrothed, when Athena had asked her how she managed to bear the weight of people’s crushing expectations she had replied: you must close your eyes and endure, weakness is the one thing we queens can never have so much as a moment of, so you must smile and never let them see how hard it is to bear.

‘This war really just turned into a revolution, didn’t it? Like, it’s not just wishful thinking now. It’s really happening, isn’t it?’

‘I think so, my love. I think so.’

“People who claim that they are evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It is the people who claim that they are good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of,” the former king snarled as rope bindings were tightly wound around his wrists by Saerys. “The demon will be the kingdom’s downfall. Mark my words. She has wanted to rebel from the beginning and was smart enough to realise that birthing the rebellion from inside the system would fare better — she and the Witch Queen truly are one in the same and by the time you all realise it, it will be too late.”

“Athena has never proclaimed herself to be a saint, all she has done is share her ideologies and help the rest of us to see the light. That goodness you speak of is no mere spoken proclamation, it is but a simple truth that all can see — a flame we wish to nurture,” Reiner replied, standing back as the minor councillors were ferried through Altea’s portal. “But make no mistake, I am sorry that it had to come to this. You were given every opportunity to adjust your views.”

“She is a fool and you are all abiding such foolishness! This is wrong! She and the sorceress have be-spelled you!”

“Talk about my love in such a manner again and I will show you how it truly feels to be be-spelled. You are lucky you are even still breathing after raising a hand to her, were it not for her virtue I can promise you would not be,” growled Helena, barely restrained anger bubbling up in her chest. She did not feel any fear as she spoke up, all eyes falling on her as she dared talk back to the former king, her love’s endless presence within her soul giving her bounds of courage that she had never had. Since being bound she had realised that life really was too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about her. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they would not have the time to sit around and talk about her. What was important to her was not others' opinions of her, but what was important to her was her opinion of herself...and she was not nearly as bad as she had once thought herself to be.

“And I take all the credit in the world for my own foolishness, thank you very much. All of life is a spell, Barzilai, and wrong takes an awfully long time to be proven. You know that. But you do have some choice, you just happened to make the wrong ones and can’t accept that you were careless enough to lose your crown due to no one’s fault but your own.”

When Helena was a little girl, everything in the world fell into either of these two categories: wrong or right. Black or white. Now that she was a grown woman who had grown enough to realise the complexities of life that she had tried not to consider for the longest time, she had put childish things aside and knew that only some thing fall into wrong and right. Only some things could be categorised into black and white. Most things in the world were not either. Most things in the world were not black, were not white, were not wrong, or right...they were just different. She knew now that there was not anything inherently wrong with different, that it was okay to just allow things to be different without trying to make them seem black or white. That letting things be grey was not an inherently dangerous prospect.

Life has no victims, took no prisoners. She could say with such absolute certainty that it was almost dizzying, that are absolutely no victims in this life. Not one person had the right to point fingers at their past and blame it for the person they became, for the person they are, today. People did not have the right to point their fingers at another and blame that person or situation for how they treat others or what they believe, today. There was always choice and always room to grow, always. 

Since having a direct pathway into Athena’s mind, Helena realised just how often her love reminder herself of such things. Whenever a thought that cited any given situation as ‘unfair’ or thoughts of wanting to get revenge on those who hurt her crossed her mind, she would correct herself so quickly that it was almost dizzying. There was a certain bravery to it, Helena believed.

Athena was afraid of ruling, of that chance that she may be forced into a position of power and find herself unable to handle it all because of her past and the blood flowing beneath her skin. Yet she did not hide in a corner pointing fingers at her past. She did not hide beneath a table from those who had hurt her and who wanted to hurt her still, who could not understand what a girl like her could possibly do for their homeland. Instead she woke up every day and she faced her past. She faced her fears. She faced her pain. She faced the naysayers. And she stomached it all. There may have been some kicking and screaming and silent mental breakdowns that no one else was allowed to see, but that was allowed and that was okay, because in the end they did not stop her from being brave. This life made no room for cowards, and in the middle of a war facing one’s own shortcomings was perhaps one of the biggest acts of bravery.

“I take it you are high queen now, mother?,” Iraia asked, watching as the men came back through the portal and the magic dissipated into the chilly winter air. 

“No,” Ishara replied, turning to Athena and beckoning her forwards.

The slight trembling in her limbs as she slowly walked to the Queen’s side was clear for all to see, her chest rising and falling far too quickly despite the calm mask she was wearing. Through their bond all Helena could hear was a wide array of squealed curse words that barely made any sense at all, repeated over and over on an endless loop.

“Ishara, I can’t. You can’t possibly be serious—“

“Relax, my dear girl, I am not asking you to commit the entirety of your life and the lives of any future descendants to the service of the realm. However, I am asking that you serve us as a monarch through a regency period that will last at least until the war’s end or until the kingdom finds some semblance of stability in the aftermath,” Ishara spoke gently, knowing Athena well enough to know that biting on her bottom lip meant that she was absolutely riddled with anxiety to the point of being close to tears. Mothering as ever, she tucked a long strand of raven hair out of the demon’s face, securing it behind her ear. “All those remaining here trust you and share your ideals. The armies fight in your name and your name alone. If we wish to win the day you must be the one to lead us. With Helena at your side and your family nurturing you as you guide the realm into the light, there is no way you will falter.”

“I just got angry and broke a man’s wrist, Ishara. I have a little bit of power from the soul stone and I’m already hurting people, what if I— What if—“ Athena shook her head and shifted her weight awkwardly between her feet, furiously holding back her tears and turning her face away from everyone watching on in the hopes they would not see just how close they were to falling. “There is already a mad queen with the same face as me...I just...I...I don’t want there to be another. I want to do no harm.”

“You are nothing like her,” Helena said, all eyes falling on her. “Hurting a man more than twice your size in self defence when he was about to strike you is not the same thing as raping and torturing people into obedience, and you know that it is not.” She took a breath, steadying herself and reached out to her through their bond, eyes locked and the rest of the world melting away. ‘Tell me the truth, no one else can hear, what is it that you are truly afraid of?’

‘I’ve seen firsthand how dangerous royal blood can be and only survived the assassination that killed my family because of Carreau’s bravery...and I...I don’t know how I’ll cope knowing that one bad choice could potentially risk your safety,’ Athena replied. ‘We as people are so fickle, and most people only like you for as long as they perceive that they can’t get what you want from you. Or for as long as they perceive you are who they want you to be, or who they perceive you to be...and that’s no way to live. I want a genuine existence and I like people for all their changing surprises; the candid thoughts in their head, the cold that changes to warmth and the warmth that changes to cold...for being people, you know? The rawness of people delights me, and the second a crown is placed on my head all of that will go away.’

‘I do not think that it will, my love. Do you honestly think that the retainers or those who already consider you to be their queen will suddenly treat you any differently if you agree to becoming regent?’

‘I mean...probably not. I would like to help out in any way that I can, obviously. I’m just scared that I won’t be enough. That I’ll disappoint people.’

‘Impossible. You are the one who told me that if one tries their best it will always be more than enough. If this is something you would like to do I will not let you falter, but if it is not then you must let me know so that I can defend you. I will stand by your side, come what may. I will not allow anyone to hurt you or force your hand in this.’

‘You’d really be okay if I agreed to this?’

‘Of course I would be, my love. You are a strong and righteous leader, and you are far more capable than you consider yourself to be.’

‘I love you.’

‘As I love you.’

Athena nodded and cleared her throat. “If I agree to do this, there are some conditions that I am adamant about being respected at all times. If they’re not or they’re too difficult to accommodate then I’m out and you can find someone else for the job. It might be petty of me but I’d be agreeing to a role I’m not entirely sure that I want purely because other people have asked that I step up, I think I’m well within my rights to make a few demands to make sure I’m not entirely miserable.”

“Naturally,” Reiner nodded. 

“The first and most important one is that Helena is my equal, in every way. She will never be expected to walk a step behind me, her voice and her opinions on every subject raised in the council chambers will always hold the same weight mines do,” Athena said, her posture straightening and her confidence growing as Helena mentally soothed her. “Secondly, is that it is understood I will continue to think and act for myself. No one has any right to think, act, or speak on my behalf without the expressed permission to do so. I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is grief and die if and when my time comes...but I refuse to let anyone use me against my will. Third, I don’t want any of you bowing to me or treating me like I’m some god-like figure. If you think I’m making the wrong choice, tell me. If you have an idea that is better than mine, then I want to hear it. If you see something wrong that you think we can change, let me know so we can change it. I always want everyone here to speak plainly to me, there’s nothing that irritates me more than pretence of any kind. Fourth, council meetings will always be places of total honesty and candour...I’ve only been coming to these things for a few weeks and I’m already sick of the lying and scheming. When someone refuses to tell me a certain piece of information, it only makes me that much more determined to find out the truth. I hate being ignorant. For me, a question that goes unanswered is like a thorn in my foot. And whilst things are so dire, omissions can and will get people killed unnecessarily. I don’t care how bad or painful a truth is, you have to tell it. Liars and traitors will have no place on the council and will be publicly dismissed immediately when they’re caught.” She took a deep breath to steady herself and fiddled with the end of her tunic. “And lastly — well, its not really a condition because I don’t wanna force anyone into anything, it’s just something that I’d like to happen — that the empty seats on the council be filled by August, Saerys, Alain, and Altea, until my regency is over. The old council was purely made up by the sons and daughters of noble houses, people who’d never been hungry or known hardship of any kind. We need to be thinking about what comes after the war, and I know that the four of you could make a difference. Your voices will be important as we eventually start transitioning between a wartime nation to a post war nation...and I trust you all.”

“And what of I?,” Iseul laughed.

“You can be the court jester,” Athena winked, knowing involving Iseul in politics would be more trouble than it was worth. The elf enthusiastically raised his hand and slapped it against Athena’s, the otherworldly ‘high-five’ gesture confusing all who did not know that Athena had taught him it.

“Athena...you...wish for me to sit on the council?,” Alain stammered. “May I ask why? What I have done to earn such an opportunity?”

“You not survived years under the thumb of the most evil person this world has known in a long time, but you remained a good person. Since you’ve been here you’ve helped everyone in any way that you can, and you continually show us who you really are outside of the image that she created for you.” When Athena smiled at him he visibly relaxed. “Your voice matters, Alain. Your opinions matter. I know you feel like you had a hand in destroying so much during the first war and before you got here, so I thought that maybe you could help us rebuild...and if Helena and I are gonna be in charge in council meetings then we’ll need to be surrounded by people that we trust.”

Tears welled up in Alain’s eyes, but he did not let them fall. Instead he just nodded and smiled, standing a little taller. The change was subtle enough that most people probably did not take notice of it, but Helena saw it with unambiguous clarity. At least for a moment, gone were the hunched shoulders and darting eyes hidden behind his floppy ash coloured hair. He stood tall. Proud. Rising on his own merits, far from her corruption.

“I would be honoured to sit on your council, Athena,” August said.

“As would I,” beamed Altea, pink sparkles dancing in the air around her.

“I, as well,” nodded Saerys.

“You will need an official title, regardless of the fact none in attendance will be using it,” said Iraia. “Queen? Grand Duchess? Empress?—“

“Tsar,” Athena interjected. “It meant ‘emperor’ where I’m from, and it was used for both men and women before I was born and my dad changed it.”

“And what was the emperor’s consort traditionally titled as?,” Ishara asked.

‘Are you good with having a title, babe? This is happening really fucking fast, I don’t wanna pressure you or—‘

‘Of course I am. I am so proud of you, my love. I am with you, unending.’

“I don’t agree with the whole ‘consort’ ideology, Ishara. ‘Consort’ implies that she belongs to me, that she is somehow less than me, and I’m not here for that shit. Helena isn’t my consort. We’re equals. She will have the same title as me.”

Helena’s breath hitched in her throat, genuinely taken aback by the passion in Athena’s words, by how she was looking at her. They may have been bound at the soul and she may have been able to feel the strength of her love for her at all times, but she would never tire of being fought for so publicly. 

“Understood,” Ishara nodded. 

“Long live the tsars,” Reiner beamed.

“Long live the tsars. Long may they reign,” everyone said in unison.

—

If the people from Helena’s home village could see her now many would have dropped dead where they stood from shock induced cardiac events, she was sure. The furthest anyone who had lived there had risen was perhaps owning the shack that they lived in, or being free from a hard life of serfdom. But there she was, continuing to redeem herself from the discretions of her past and not only betrothed to the high monarch of the realm...but co-ruler. Tsar Helena the First. Or, Helena the Powerful, as the soldiers had taken to calling her...it was certainly a long way from being known as the monstrous General Klein around the world. It was almost overwhelming to think about. There were times she almost felt as if she was living in an illusion, a dream, where all things were possible. Where even the very concept of impossibility ceased to exist altogether. Amazing things did happen, that she knew but until meeting her soul mate in a barren forest they had always happened to someone else, always in some far off place and time...never to her.

There was no time to stop and smell the roses, not when the change in the chain of command had made everyone so comfortable that battle plans were literally coming at them from every direction. And Lady Asta frequently sent fresh baking to the front to show her gratitude for elevating her son to council member, much to August’s embarrassment. Even their beloved ‘court jester’ had stepped up to the plate and presented the idea of summoning Imhon and their dragon riding regiment to the front, theorising that having airborne soldiers and fire breathing beasts who were protected by ancient runes would be invaluable to their offensive.

Ankle deep snow may have frozen their encampment and seasonal flu may have been thick in the air, but everybody was finally emerging from the depths of the war fatigue that had befallen them under King Barzilai’s command. People were desperate to prove themselves, to rise up in the new order of things, and it seemed that many of them knew that kindness was the only way to go about it. The camp, overall, had felt like a kinder place since Barzilai had left. It already felt like a better world, despite the fact they were in the middle of war. It felt like a place where all were responsible for their actions and given the opportunity to redeem themselves, where people could be kind to one another because they wanted to be and because it was the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.

“It feels like we are about to change history, my love,” Helena said, her eyes locked on the snow covered poppy fields. Battalions of soldiers were training under August, Iraia, and Alain’s command as hoards of armoured dragons protected by ancient magic flew above and around the shield over the city, taunting the Witch Queen and hopefully showing the trapped citizens that help was on it’s way. Watching things finally begin to progress on their break from the war table was far more rewarding than Helena had expected that it would be. 

It was finally beginning to seem like all they had been through might just be worth it in the end — for so long, she could have said whether their fighting would eventually be worth it, but she had learned that the worth in all they were doing was in every single act. Worth only halts when one surrenders their will to change and experience life. But options are always ahead; choose one and dedicate yourself to it. The deeds will give you a new hope and purpose, and they will always pay off.

In the strip of land that stood between their heavily populated encampment and the shield she and Altea had crafted a magical trap similar to the one that was imbued into the walls of the hall of records. It would not instantly kill any who set foot in it, but it would strip any caster without a protective rune on their body of their magic should they try to call it to hand within its borders or it’s airspace — the Witch Queen could not escape unless she portalled, and doing so would only weaken her shield just enough to allow for their curse to immediately spread into the city. She was trapped there...like a beast ripe for the slaughter.

“We’ve already changed it, babe,” Athena beamed, whilst balancing on the snow covered stone wall that separated one field from another. Hidden beneath her new dark blue velvet cloak with snowflakes in her hair, that she had begrudgingly allowed Iseul to braid into a half up-half down style, she stood out against the snowy desert as she watched their soldier’s train. Looking every inch as naturally regal and striking as a monarch should. “We’ve been throwing ourselves off cliff after cliff without knowing how deep the water below is, and history will look back on us and think we were either fucking batshit crazy or just really brave. I’m not sure which I would prefer, I kinda like the whole maniac vibe though. Like, to have people look back on this time a few hundred years from now and hear our names and be like ‘shit, they were fucking wild’ is a life goal of mine.”

“Why not both?,” she hummed. “Do not underestimate us, I think we could be incredibly brave maniacs if we tried.”

Athena giggled and playfully jumped into Helena’s arms. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm?”

“Knowing that we’ll either live or die, together — but refusing to live in fear. Seeing other people stand up and refuse to live in fear, seeing them work together and be willing to protect each other like this. It makes all the stress worth it, I think.”

“It does feel good.” She pressed a kiss on her lips, refusing to return her to her feet now that she was held safely in her arms. “And you feel freezing.”

“We can’t all have badass magical powers that keep us warm at all times — and I’ll admit that I was fucking pissed when I realised the stone wouldn’t make me into a walking space heater. Like, yeah, it’s lit that it makes me harder to kill when some dumb fuck attacks me and makes me look all soul-sucking-demon-queen when the red magic does its thing, but you’d think that they could have included a temperature control facet.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“You have half of my soul now, that means you’re just as ridiculous as me and you can’t insult me anymore without insulting yourself too.”

“I might have reconsidered if I had realised the majority of my humour would indeed backfire,” she joked, kissing the tip of her nose and then resting her brow against hers. “At least you being so vertically challenged will always remain fair game.”

“The weather is nice up here, stretch.”

“Careful, you may get a nosebleed at this altitude.”

“Fight me.”

Using her magic, Helena carefully crafted a perfect snow ball behind Athena’s back as she returned her to her feet. “My love, look at that!”

“Wha—,” Athena cut herself off as she turned and the snow ball was fired at her face. “Helena!”

“You told me to fight you!,” she wheezed, doubling over as she giggled. “And considering I am the only one who can throw things at you without potentially dying in the process now, I fully intend to take full advantage of it.”

“It is so fucking on right now! This is the only sport I’m good at, so you better run!”

“I am quaking in my boots, I assure you,” she beamed, piling snow into her hands. As a child she had seen neighbours engaging in the childish game and had always longed to be a part of the fun. Running around and pelting each other with balls of snow seemed like the only smart way to unwind from hours of ‘queening’, as Athena called it. It may have been a horrific display of immaturity, a moment of weakness, but it was well needed and deserved. Making the most of the fleeting moments between an endless stream of tragedies, that was how one survived in war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Speechless’ by Naomi Scott ❤️


	13. Fist Fighting A Sandstorm

If any honour existed in war, it was in fighting to protect others from harm. Since stepping into a position of power, for Helena, choices had become simple. Far simpler than she had ever thought that they could be. Either there was an action she could take to improve any given situation, in which case she took it, or there was not, and everything else said on the subject was meaningless noise. Having spent so long engulfed in the life of a bad ruler she knew what not to do by virtue of the Witch Queen’s example, and had quickly come to realise just how easy it was to have power and not become a merciless tyrant. She’d been broken too many times to break again under the weight of responsibility, she was going to prove to herself and to everyone else that she and Athena could end a reign of tyranny and change things for the better.

The respect that came with power was not something that Helena was accustomed to, and did not think that she ever would become entirely used to. The distinct difference between their chain of command and King Barzilai’s was that every person in a position of power had bled alongside the men and women who they were asking to bleed for them, they had proven time and again that they would wade through an ocean of blood for their people...and that was invaluable. The respect they were given had actually been earned, instead of passed down through distinct bloodlines and wordlessly enforced out of nothing more than habit.

“Our eyes in the sky have told us that she is shepherding child soldiers to the castle,” Imhon Idreis said. They pointed to the map of the city that was laid out on the war table and moved the little wooden markers that symbolised guards to different positions around the castle and it’s surrounding square. “She has slaughtered many of the poorer middle aged and elderly citizens in the past few days, leaving many of the children orphaned and vulnerable to her corruption.”

“Does she intend to kill the children? Why would she sacrifice the grown and conscript untrained children into her number?,” Iraia asked.

“No, she does not intend to kill them,” Alain replied with a furrowed brow, his voice filled with new found confidence as he circled the table in his new golden armour. Helena and Altea had enchanted the metal of his old set, turning the Witch Queen’s colours into rich shades of gold and red. He was unrecognisable and ‘General Richter’ was nowhere to be seen, there was only Alain and wearing their colours meant that he was now truly one of their number. “I believe she knows the moment that her shield is broken the spell binding curse will act too quickly for her to escape. She knows that she is trapped, that she is losing. She is using the children as a meat shield, of sorts.”

“She knows we will not attack when there is a chance hundreds of children could be massacred in the battle that will ensue as soon as her shield is broken.” Helena clutched at the hilt of her longsword whilst studying the map of the city. “She may be weak but her army still outnumbers ours, my love...and her soldiers presumably have not been sleeping in tents for weeks like ours have. Even without Magnus here to lead them the fact that they are backed into a corner will make them a dangerous foe.”

“So we need more soldiers before we attack, then,” Athena mused, commanding the war room and the newly formed council with an effortless grace that captivated all lucky enough to be in her presence. “We’re not going to forcibly conscript from remote backwater villages, and we can’t summon larger village guards to the front at a time like this and risk leaving entire stretches of land unprotected.”

“I do not think we will have much of a choice, Athena,” Saerys sighed. “We are helpless, here.”

“We have never been helpless, Saerys. We just have powerful enemies.” Athena paused and glanced at the map sprawled across the table, her silvery eyes studying it intently for a few seconds. “We cant start off the new world with an act of cruelty, and Helena and I will not be the sort of rulers who force unwilling people to bleed for us. We have to be better than that, otherwise everything we’re trying to achieve will mean nothing. We’ll be no better than her.”

“So is our strategy going to continue to be silence until we can work a way around this problem without drawing up a draft?,” Reiner asked.

“Even the gods use silence as a strategy, Reiner. Don’t confuse the stillness with waisted time,” Athena murmured.

“What about Eclaciel?,” Altea asked, quietly. “I...if I were to reach out to an old friend there I am somewhat certain she would send troops to aid in our cause.”

Everyone turned to look at the suddenly bashful wizard, who was blushing so much that her cheeks were almost as pink as her hair. 

“I was not aware you had that sort of influence, Altea,” August murmured, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“I...I was born the crown princess of Eclaciel,” Altea sighed, shifting her weight awkwardly between her feet. “I ran away from home as a child when my parents tried to stifle my magic, with the aid of Ser Mireille Mercier. Had I to write to her and inform her of our predicament I am certain she would come to our aid.”

“Holy shit. Are there any more secret royals amongst us that I need to know about?!,” Athena blurted out, before she could stop herself. The outburst sent a ripple of laughter throughout the tent and relieved some of the tension that had built up...and the inner monologue consisted of a colourful array of both human and demonic swear words that Ishara would not hesitate to lecture her for had she to hear it.

“Please do what you can, Altea. Preferably with as much haste as you can manage, we would like to begin our assault and put an end to this carnage as soon as possible,” Helena said. 

“And what punishment do you wish to serve to the spies that Richter and I arrested?,” Iraia asked. “King Barzilai’s standard punishment for spying depended on the severity of the double-cross. Either death or cutting out their tongues.”

“We found them attempting to uncover information that would tarnish your regency,” Alain added.

“When you rip out a person’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar or teaching him a lesson, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say and making people think you have something to hide,” Athena replied, calmly. “We’ll imprison them in the elven domain for the time being and arrange a fair trial for after the war. I would send them to Wolfson Castle, but I don’t want too many traitors kept in the same place. It could get messy.”

“They committed high treason,” August gasped. “Death has always been the suitable punishment for the highest forms of treason...”

“Yes, and we would have to be the ones to pass the sentence,” Helena said. “The person who passes the sentence should always be the one to run them through or hang the noose. We do not wish to kill anyone unnecessarily. If we eventually do take these people’s lives, we owe it to them to look into their eyes, give them a chance to defend themselves, and then hear their final words. And if one cannot bear to do that much themselves, then perhaps the accused does not deserve to die at all.” 

“They could do worse, if given half the chance to do so,” August winced.

“You resort to executing men only for the wrongs they have committed, not the wrongs that you assume that they may do someday.” The sorceress had dropped her shyness like a silky nightgown, and in the liquid glare of the wintery morning sunlight on old boards as it shone through the thick white canvas of the tent she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming battle and bloodshed, she had at last understood that she was smart and that her life had meaning. She was capable of helping people, of standing on her own two feet whilst still being part of a team. She had earned the respect of those who knew her and those who did not, and whilst her past would never be forgotten or even forgiven — by some, at least — that was okay. Every single moment she put in the work to show people she was not the monster that they had once made of her.

She had learned, that the person she had to ask for forgiveness from the most was: herself. She wanted to love herself, and was slowly learning how. She had to forgive herself, everyday, whenever she remembered a shortcoming, a flaw, that made her want to crawl out of her own skin. She had to repeatedly tell herself "That is just fine". She had to forgive herself so much, until the day came when she would not even see those things anymore. The forgiveness and respect that she had earned from others would not mean as much, and would perhaps even go unnoticed, if she could not manage to be kind to herself, too. She would never forget what she was, for surely the world would not. She had made it her strength. Never again would it be her weakness. She had armoured herself in it, and it could never again be used to hurt her.

Athena had told the council an old tale from the world where she was raised, about an ancient king and his round table of knights. Helena had not thought that hearing the fable would be so transformative, transient as it was. The demon had arranged for the entirety of the new council to publicly take the oath from the story before the army, and it had been quite the sight to behold to see everyone in full armour being ceremonially knighted and swearing themselves to the people. The oath itself was something that Helena had taken to heart. ‘I will develop my life for the greater good. I will place character above riches, and concern for others above personal wealth, I will never boast, but cherish humility instead, I will speak the truth at all times, and forever keep my word, I will defend those who cannot defend themselves, I will honour and respect all, and refute sexism in all its guises, I will uphold justice by being fair to all, I will be faithful in love and loyal in friendship, I will abhor scandals and gossip-neither partake nor delight in them, I will be generous to the poor and to those who need help, I will forgive when asked, that my own mistakes will be forgiven, I will live my life with courtesy and honour from this day forward.’ 

It was the creed that bound their found family to one another, and to the people who’s service that they were in. The old council had seemed to forget that they were in fact in the service of the realm, as they had intended to continue to be royalty at play in the heart of war. The new council would not fall into the same pitfalls. Helena would not break again.

“Good morning, your majesties!,” a random soldier called out as they began their morning rounds of the encampment. The title was still a shock to the system whenever Helena heard in in reference to herself, it was even more shocking how genuinely people seemed whenever she and Athena made an appearance. There was no fear or submission, like the Witch Queen demanded, only happiness.

“Morning, everyone!,” Athena called back, waving in the general direction of where they had heard the voice come from. Even though the regency was only a temporary thing, she was absolutely determined to ensure that they would not meet the same sort of end that her family did. The crown depended on the people. Nobility and people in positions of power were gold and their armies were steel, but together, those two links could not make a chain all on their own. They needed silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those were farmers and smiths and merchants and teachers and alchemists and bakers and the like. A strong chain needed all sorts of precious metals to have any sort of strength at all, just like a realm needed to be a melting pot of all sorts of people.

Instead of hiding away every day like Barzilai did and sending attendees to do the rounds, they did them themselves. Snow may have been blanketing the ground but that did not stop them from their work. Every day they would visit the makeshift hospital barrack tent and check on the soldiers who were recovering from seasonal illnesses and injury alike. They would visit with the kitchens and the coopers and the blacksmiths. They would talk with the guards on watch and bring them warm drinks. They did what they could to ensure that everyone was comfortable and taken care of, with Helena and Altea’s spells coming in handy in making sure that the interiors of every tent was warm enough that no one would freeze to death in the nights. She had hear the words ‘humanist’ and ‘humanitarian’ flying around the camp whenever anyone on the council did anything for the good of the soldiers, but Helena had vowed to never use them. It seemed to her that to be human was to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.

Even though what had happened to Athena’s family had happened long before Helena was born, she would never be ignorant of it. To be ignorant of what occurred before one was born was to remain a perpetual child. For what was the worth of human life, unless it was woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

Regardless of how the mood in the camp had begun to shift into something more hopeful, war still brought out the worst in people. Helena knew that all too well. To many of the people living it the encampment war must have seemed like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them would ever come to know. Before getting a true taste of war in her first few battles and sieges she had thought exactly the same thing.

For some, only one taste would be far more than enough to break them apart at the seams. Others had the strength of mind required to carry on for many years, until they eventually lost count of all the battles they had fought in and all the sieges they have held, but even a soldier who had somehow defied the odds and survived a hundred fights could easily break during their hundred-and-first. In every conflict in history people watch their kin die, fathers lose their sons, mothers lose their daughters, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails inside their body using their hands after they have been unceremoniously gutted by an axe.

Sometimes they see the lord who led them from their lands into battle cut down, and then some other lord would demand that they fight in their name without giving them any say so in the matter — treating them more like cattle than people. Soldiers take wound after wound, continuously. There was never enough to eat, their shoes would eventually begin to fall to pieces from marching and fighting and exposure to the elements, their clothes become little more than rotting rags that hang from skeletal frames, and at least half of them always end up practically shitting in their breeches and vomiting up their internal organs from being dim witted enough to drink impure water.

If the average soldier wanted a new pair of sturdy boots or a warmer cloak, they usually need to take them from a corpse, and then before long they almost always would end up stealing from the living too, from the common folk whose land they are fighting in, people like the ones they used to be before the dawned their first suit of armour...people they were supposed to be fighting for. It was not unheard of for armies to slaughter their livestock and steal their chickens, and from there it could very easily be just a small step from carrying off their wives, sisters, and daughters, too. Then one day they look around and realise that most or all their friends and family are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognise, understand, or believe in. 

Even though their rule was temporary and would hopefully be a kinder one than the world had known for some time, they would not be soft. There was a difference between ruling with integrity and being a weak ruler, and they would not stand for for any in their number acting out the way soldiers so often did when they allowed the power wearing a suit of armour gave them to go to their heads. 

‘In all of the books that I read in the other world, every single author made it seem like taking a throne was the hardest thing in the world,’ Athena commented, through their bond, as they trudged through the ankle deep snow and exchanged niceties with whatever soldiers they had to pass. They had taken to communicating strictly through their connection whilst in public as a security measure, given that people attempting to listen into their conversations and misunderstanding the snippets that they heard had become a real possibility. ‘We didn’t even need to lift a finger. Not really. It was handed to us. Now we are responsible for all of these people. It’s fucking wild.’

‘I promise you, my love, that sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one.’ Helena squeezed their joined hands whilst blinking falling snow out of her eyes and suppressing a shiver. ‘It is strange, but recently I have been wondering if everyone around us is merely just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are in actuality. Fear of the future and, oddly, happiness with the present is being expressed more openly.’

‘Maybe pretending is how you get brave for real, in the end,’ Athena replied. ‘I think people are starting to realise the end is in sight, and after becoming so acclimated to war it is understandable why peace would be a scary prospect. I think it’s just now dawning on them that there were always more ways to live than the ones given by their so-called-superiors, and its a hard thing to accept.’

‘Everything changes.’

Athena hummed, out loud, and nodded her head. ‘Years pass by in their hundreds and their thousands, and all most of us see of life are a few dozen summers and winters. In the average person’s lifespan the world changes so much between their first breath that it becomes barely recognisable by the time they breathe their last. We look at mountain ranges and growing cities and people think they are eternal, but even mountains rise and fall and change their shape, and even the biggest city can eventually end up at the bottom of the sea. Hell, even the gods die and are eventually replaced by new ones. Everything is constantly changing and it’s our job to make sure the changes we’re seeing today will eventually make something better.’

‘How is it that we are bound at the soul, yet you can still tear me asunder with the poetic things that you say?’

‘I have many talents besides pissing off politicians and delivering mind blowing orgasms with my tongue, thank you very much.’ Playfully, Athena nudged her hip against hers as they walked and poked her tongue out between her lips. They probably looked like they were bordering on the brink of insanity when their mental conversations made them giggle so much, as from the outside looking in they really did appear to be laughing at thin air...but Helena did not give such matters much thought. She was happy.

‘Are you going to behave yourself or do I have to make you, mm?’

‘In all honesty, I think you should probably find some place to tie me down and punish me. You know, just to make sure I really learn my lesson.’

‘I wish for you to know, without a single shadow of a doubt, that you are the most incorrigible person that I have ever met...and I lived with Lennox Arnold for years.’

‘Thank you.’

‘That was not intended to be a compliment.’

‘Oh, I know. But I’ve been called incorrigible so much that I’ve decided to run with it. I literally want history to remember me as Athena The Incorrigible. I’ll be disappointed with anything less.’

Helena cackled at that, and almost doubled over. ‘They already call you Athena The Great, is that not good enough?!’

‘I said what I said and I stand by it.’

‘You are a strange one, my love...but it never ceases to hearten me.’

—

“Your majesties,” Ser Mireille Mercier said, dropping to her knees in a full suit of the distinctive Eclacielian armour that Helena had only ever seen once or twice before. It’s metal gave of a distinctive pearl-like pinkish sheen, it’s craftsmanship detailed enough that it rivalled that of the elves. Behind her, an entire army of heavily armoured knights in similar armour fell to their knees, too. There had to be at least five thousand of them, all fresh faced and well kitted, but untested in the heat of battle. “I was overjoyed to finally hear from Princess Altea, and relayed the news of her safety to their majesties King Ludovic and Queen Adelaide. They have sent with me some of their finest trained warriors to aid in your cause, along with their deepest gratitude for keeping their daughter safe.”

‘Holy fucking shit! I lost my virginity to her double in Chicago! Oh fuck! Fuck! No fucking way!’

‘You did not...’

‘This is not a fucking drill! Abort! Abort!’

‘I will kill you.’

‘Please do! The sweet relief of death is exactly what I need right now!’

‘Athena—‘

‘I want to fucking punch this bitch already! That face—‘

‘I should be receiving my sainthood any day now.’

‘I am having a heart attack!’

‘You are having a heart attack?! You are about to give me a heart attack! Calm yourself, my love.’

“All due respect, Ser Mercier, I believe Altea has been the one providing us with safety as opposed to the other way around...but we are grateful to welcome you all to our home, regardless,” Athena smiled, her face an aloof but kind mask, despite the complete and utter mental break down happening inside of her head.

“The men and women of the council have been sharing common dormitories as a safety precaution for the duration of our stay here, so there are plenty of free tents for you and your generals to choose from...and we had some of our people pitch tents for your armies to share,” Helena added. “There is also hot tomato soup and pine bark bread waiting to welcome you.”

“Your hospitality honours us, your majesty. We have heard many rumours about the greatness of the tsars, at first glance it seems that they were indeed accurate.”

“In times like these some allies are more dangerous than enemies, ensuring your people have adequate accommodations is the least that we could do to start our friendship off on the right foot after you crossed an ocean for us,” Athena smiled, extending her hand to help Ser Mercier to her feet. “Ser Alain Richter and Ser August Falke will lead your soldiers to their accommodations, and if you and your generals would follow us we will take you to yours.”

When Alain and August stepped forwards in their full suits of armour a few gasps echoed throughout the Eclacielian soldiers gathered before them, from warriors of every gender. Helena struggled to stifle a laugh at how Alain’s cheeks flushed and August stood taller, and she was certain that they would have no trouble in finding agreeable company in the coming days.

“I beg your pardon, your grace, but is Princess Altea around?” Ser Mercier was polite and undoubtedly still sizing them up as they began to trudge through the snow from the encampment’s borders towards the hub of their command, where generals and council members had been living. “I was hoping I might have the opportunity to speak with her.”

“Altea was taking a break from her studies and drawing up plans for the magical school she intends to found once the war is finished, the last I heard from her. She will undoubtedly make an appearance by the time dinner is served,” Helena smiled, reciting the lie that Altea had begged her to tell, word for word. In actuality, she knew exactly where Altea was. She was hiding beneath the war table in their makeshift dormitory with Iseul at her side and numbing her emotions with mead and the pecan pastries that Lady Asta had sent to them.

Ser Mercier opened her mouth to grumble, but Athena silenced her with a single unimpressed glance. It was a half-second look that dared her to continue and said: ‘we know exactly how she was treated in Eclaciel and will defend her at any cost’, ‘do not dare speak out of turn about our friend’, and ‘do not forget you are talking to royalty’, all at once. It was the look only a monarch could give to keep people in their places. Power resides only where people believe that it resides. Even the smallest of people can potentially cast an oversized shadow...and Athena’s reputation really did proceed her. She may have been a tiny slip of a woman, but she was a legend. Ser Mercier did not have to know that she would not snap unless someone first rattled her cage, not yet.

“That sounds most agreeable, your majesty,” she forced out, through gritted teeth. “It has been some time since we have spoken. I merely wish to ensure that she is well.”

“Fear not, for she is in good health and spirits, Ser Mercier,” Helena said, before Athena could blurt anything out without first thinking her words through. “In truth she wished to collect her thoughts before speaking with you in person.”

“That is understandable,” Ser Mercier nodded, respectfully.

“We will leave you all to rest, then,” Athena said, coolly. “You have had quite the journey so I am sure you are all in need of it.”

“Thank you, your majesty.” She bowed deeply at the waist as they stopped walking outside of the row of larger tents that had once been occupied by the women of their little family. The gesture was mirrored by the gaggle of armoured generals, many of whom had vibrant shades of hair that spanned a wide array of pinks and reds that were hidden beneath the falling snow.

The snow on the ground was at least two feet deep, and the ice winds coming down from the north did not make it any easier to bear. Snow they could handle. Wind they could handle. The real enemy was the bitter cold. Beneath their heavy cloaks they shivered and their teeth chattered. To keep warm one had to keep moving and dream of warm spiced mugs of tea and warm hearths. It was so cold that it burned...Helena knew all too well that nothing burnt quite like the cold could. It was dangerous to be still and be outside for too long, because the cold quickly seeped though the skin and weakened the body. It made people want to lay down and sleep...and some of their number had given into the urge on their guard.

Her once consolation was that death by cold was a peaceful one. A person ceased to feel anything at all towards the end. First came the weakness and then the drowsiness, and then they just fell asleep. No suffering...only peace.

‘Well...that went...’

‘It was not terrible but it would have been better if you had not wanted to throttle her upon seeing her face, my love.’ Helena stifled a laugh as draped her arm around Athena’s shoulders and began leading her towards their own tent, where they could warm up with mugs of spiced apple cider after playing the diplomats.

‘If you knew her double you’d understand why. When we went out to eat she would eat all of my fucking french fries and she stole my favourite hoodie and I’m still sore.’

‘How long ago was this romance?’

‘Like nine years ago!’

‘That must have been some hoodie.’

‘Don’t even get me started, it was fleece lined and everything.’ Athena laughed out loud, and quickly glanced over her shoulder at the tents they were walking away from. ‘I know Mireille isn’t Ellie, but we should nail down anything of value...just in case.’

‘Already questioning Ser Mercier’s honour, I see,’ Helena teased.

‘I’m not questioning shit. I’m denying its existence entirely.’

‘You are the Witch Queen’s double—‘

‘Oh, no! I was born first, she is my double. I’m also completely open about the fact I’m supremely extra and out here just fucking winging everything in the hopes that it all somehow pans out...but that look she gave me was full blown Hoodie Thief.’

‘You—‘ Helena’s train of thought stopped in its tracks as Saerys’ panicked voice echoed over the snowy encampment as he yelled out for them.

The both spun around and Helena’s hand instinctively fell to the hilt of her swords, and they saw their friend crawling out of the shadows cast by the tree line, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. By the colour of it alone she could tell it was arterial blood...it was brighter than she imagined it would be.

“Get Reiner, now!,” she hissed, giving Athena a quick shove towards the council chambers before teleporting right to where Saerys was laying. 

Upon closer inspection she immediately saw the the knife wound in his brachial artery on his left side, so she did the only thing that she could...she plugged the wound with her hand. He was ashen faced and absolutely caked in his own blood. 

“Who did this to you, my friend?!”

“Cultists...in the forest....said...they needed my blood...got away.” His voice was so tight and hoarse he did not sound like himself, but he clung to Helena with what little strength that he had left. “Do...not leave.”

“You will be just fine, Reiner is coming. He is on his way. Hold on. You must hold on, Saerys.”

He smiled, weakly, and managed to nod his head. “What...will be will...be. No one can...escape...f-fate's design.”

“Do not talk as if you will die here. Do not,” she cringed as she put more pressure on the seeping wound on his arm. 

He nodded again and took a shallow breath. “The day d-dawned so...fair. It...is c-cruel f-for...it to end.....so foul.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named by ‘Fist Fighting A Sandstorm’ by Sia ❤️


	14. Paint It Black

“Go on then, defend yourselves,” Athena said, her face a cold and regal mask as she stood in front of the gaggle of kneeling soldiers who had abandoned their patrols of their borders and allowed cultists to breach their encampment. Her grey eyes were so filled with rage that a few of the soldiers could not meet her gaze, all of them shrinking away from taking the spotlight. “I am waiting...and don’t even think about trying my patience. A councillor was attacked and almost lost his life because of you imbeciles acting so complacently! Give me a reason not to strip you all of your weapons and your salaries and send you home.”

“We ain’t got no homes left to go to, your grace,” a gruff looking woman wearing the human regiment’s colours said, sheepishly. “This war is all we have. We was welcoming the Eclacielians to the front instead of taking our patrols.”

“That’s no excuse. All I’m hearing is that instead of following orders that came directly from the council you decided to take it upon yourselves to host a party in the middle of a war zone instead.” 

“Your majesty—“

“Would you like to know something that I’ve learned, fairly recently?,” Athena mused, the relaxed tone of her voice seeming awfully disconnected from the mask of her face.

The soldiers nodded.

“That a woman does not need to have magic to see the truth, not if she has a working set of eyes. A person only needs to learn to read one face and then they can read them all, they’re all the same. The eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders." She touched her own face lightly with two fingers, as casually as if she were applying her makeup. "Some liars stare. Some blink too quickly. Some look anywhere but at the person they’re talking to. Some lick their lips. Many cover their mouths just before they tell a lie, as if to try and conceal their deceit. Other signs might be far more subtle, but they are always there. Always. A false smile and a true one may look alike, but they are different...and delightfully easy to tell apart when one knows exactly what they’re looking for.”

Catching on, Helena moved to Athena’s side and with a flick of her wrist the soldiers hands were quickly bound behind their backs with summoned strands of rope. Their uniforms did not fit them and were bloodied in such a way that made it clear that they did not belong to them. She did her best to ignore the confused mumblings of their friends, but hoped that they knew them well enough to know that they were not taking joy from the horrific looks of fear painted across the soldiers faces.

“Tell us, which of our generals do you serve under?,” Helena asked.

“Ah— General...Bellerose?”

“You lie. Worse, you lie terribly,” she deadpanned.

“I am not a general, young man,” Altea scoffed.

“They’re spies and from the looks of these commandeered uniforms, bad ones at that. Is she really so desperate that she would send these idiots into our midst, thinking we wouldn’t notice?! That’s just downright insulting!” There was no humour in Athena’s laugh, only irritation. “They killed our guards to allow cultists to breach the border and then looted from the dead.”

“What do you wish for us to do with them?,” Iraia asked.

“Interrogate them. They got out of the city somehow without breaking the shield, yes? Find out how,” Helena responded.

“We will tell you anything that you wish to know, there is much you can learn from us but only if you do not kill us—“

“Enough!,” Athena snapped, silencing the cowardly spy grovelling at her feet and making the other’s visibly flinch at the venom in her voice. “Do not presume to teach us lessons or barter for your lives. You threatened our people, and that injustice will be met with justice as soon as we decide it. Grow a spine and stop embarrassing yourselves even more than you already have.”

It was one thing to be loved as a ruler, but another one to be respected. The day had come when they needed their people to respect them, even fear them a little. A tsar may love the land she rules and the people that she commands and be loved in turn, but she cannot ever be a friend to them. One day she will need to sit in judgement on them, and send them forth to die. A councillor had been attacked in broad daylight and guards murdered, regardless of how they personally felt about executing people...Helena knew that they may not have a choice. Would their army continue to be loyal if they showed mercy on those who had wronged people wearing their colours? Or would the consider each breath the spies were granted a weakness? Would they use that weakness against them? 

“Iraia, August, Alain, Iseul, get them out of my sight,” Athena muttered as she turned away from their enemies and staked towards the long wooden table to pour herself a warm glass of apple cider.

“Athena,” Ishara said, eyes wide as their armoured knights lead the enemies from the council chambers.

“What we can do and what we will do are two different things, Ishara,” Athena snapped, without turning around. Stress rippled from her body in waves and Helena could tell that a migraine was clawing at the inside of her skull, whilst she felt much the same way she was far more used to it than her love was. “Lives have meaning, not deaths. We’re not going to have those kids publicly hung, drawn, and quartered...but they don’t need to know that. Their sins will be forgiven but their crimes require punishment.”

“I was not trying to scold you, my dear one. I simply wished to tell you both that I was proud of how you conducted yourselves.” Ishara gave her a sympathetic glance and gestured towards the far side of the tent, knowing well enough to give Athena some space whilst she spoke to her.

“Forgive her,” Helena sighed. “You know she is not sleeping and not consuming a healthy diet...and governing vexes her at the best of times, most of all when she is forced to make people fear her. Anything but kindness does not come to her by nature...you may be proud of how she conducted herself, but she is stricken with shame.”

“I know,” Ishara breathed, glancing back towards Athena. The demon was practically stewing, hunched over and curled in on herself whilst pretending to study random papers strewn across the war table. She needed a moment to herself before Helena, or anyone else, attempted to soothe her. 

“Does it get easier? Ruling, I mean.”

“I often ask myself the same question, my dear. No Queen in history has ever had spotlessly clean hands. Spirits be good, why would any woman ever want to be queen? When I was coronated I told myself...swore to myself...that I would be a good queen, as honourable as my mother before me, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies...now there are times that I cannot even tell one from the other.” She smiled at her, more vulnerably than Helena had ever seen. “So many vows...you must swear and swear. Defend the realm. Obey the high monarch. Keep their secrets. Do their bidding. Your life for theirs. But obey the council. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It can be too much for the best of us, Helena. No matter what one does, they are constantly forsaking one vow or the other.”

“Okay, so I’ve had my moment to sulk,” Athena declared, drawing everybody’s attention back to her. She was drawn, pale, and utterly exhausted looking, having lost so much weight that she looked as if a strong breeze would blow her over but she rose to her feet regardless and everybody gathered around the war table. “So, I need suggestions as to why the cultists were after Saerys’ blood specifically. She’s obviously planning something and I feel like we’re running two steps behind her. Ishara?”

“In all of my attempts at divination I cannot see her plan unfolding clearly. She is acting so erratically she may be descending further into madness,” Ishara sighed. “She seems to be following the strategy of purposely keeping her foes confused. If we are never certain what she wants, we cannot possibly know what she is likely to do next.”

“Sometimes the best way to baffle your enemy is to make moves that seemingly have no purpose, or even seem to work against you,” Reiner added. “Let us see what our new prisoners say during their interrogations and make our next moves then. It would be my suggestion that we increase our patrols and limit the guards around councillors with only those that we trust implicitly.”

“Anyone besides those on the council cannot be entirely trusted right now, Reiner...and we wish for Saerys to be under constant watch until we have a clear view of why he was targeted,” Helena said. 

“And Ser Mercier? What are your opinions of her?,” Altea asked.

“We are undecided, but perhaps that is because we do not yet know exactly where her loyalties will lie if push comes to shove. Whilst the Eclacielians are valuable allies, they are not in the circle of trust yet. Our trust and the trust of the council is not given freely, it has to be earned.” 

“Athena, are you listening to a word of this conversation?,” Ishara asked, gently, noticing the far off look in Athena’s eyes as everyone spoke around her. Helena could feel that deep inside there was not one single part of her that wanted to be where she was and she was struggling with all her might to focus, but lacking the sort of stimulation that she was craving it was not easy.

“You confuse not speaking with not listening,” Athena replied, with a soft smile. “I think what all of this boils down to is that we have to watch our backs and protect each other, because we don’t know shit about what she is planning. Excuse the language but it’s true. We had our assault planned out and then this happened, and we need to know more about why she needed demon blood and how those cultists escaped the city before we show up on her doorstep. We will not lead our people into a massacre.”

Everybody murmured in agreement.

“And in the process of all this, we are still sizing up our new ‘allies’. I may just be paranoid but I’m no longer naive enough to believe in coincidence with no proof that it is not sabotage. I can’t dismiss the fact Saerys was attacked minutes after they arrived on our doorstep whilst everybody was distracted.”

“What are you suggesting, Athena? You think Mireille had something to do with this? That Eclaciel is allied with the Witch Queen?,” Altea gasped.

“There’s no proof either way...but I’m not completely disregarding the possibility that we may have just welcomed an enemy into our home until I see proof that tells me otherwise. Yeah, your parents may have sent their best with rosy intentions...or they have an alliance with the Witch Queen that we don’t know about. It’s just now dawning on me how weird it is that Eclaciel was always left untouched. That they never even offered to help before...and how one letter was all that it took for them to show up.”

“I...I had not considered that either,” Reiner gulped.

“I wasn’t here during the first war but in the other world there were plenty of wars that I learned about in school and every textbook taught me the same thing. Make no choice, and you have chosen. Failure to decide, because you lack the will or desire to stand up for what is right, is itself a decision. In abstaining, you vote. In sitting back whilst the world burns, you declare your loyalty...and you declare it unambiguously.” Athena let out a long sigh and sat up on the war table, in that casual way that only she could get away with without Ishara saying something about propriety. “Them not intervening before when they had the means to was an act of cowardice that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people...so why would one letter with no proof that it was really from Altea suddenly inspire courage in them? Who’s pawns are we dealing with here and what game are they playing?”

Everyone gaped at at her. All of them rendered silent. It did not appear that anyone had considered what she had just said when King Ludovic and Queen Adelaide had sent their army. Whilst Helena hoped in earnest that their aid had been sent in good faith, she was far too streetwise not to know that the twisted game those of royal blood play amongst one another was far too dark and complex to truly comprehend from every angle. What she did know for certain: no one who wore a crown was ever truly safe, and in this game one either won or they died.

“I cannot believe we did not consider this,” Altea sighed before throwing back a glass of mead. Being a princess, herself, meant that she could not say with confidence that Athena was merely suffering from a case of war induced paranoia. She knew the game, too. “We must be vigilant.”

“We will face any threat to our reign and our people with sword in hand. If Eclaciel has betrayed us by allying with the Witch Queen we will retaliate, we will strip them bare if they dare to try us,” Athena deadpanned.

“That is a serious threat to make, Athena,” Reiner said, quietly.

“That wasn’t a threat, that was a promise.”

Ishara cleared her throat, loudly, to break some of the tension mounting over the war table. Everyone’s eyes fell on her as she moved to Athena’s side, moving so gracefully that she may as well have been floating. “When any one of us speak of the morrow nothing is ever certain, but Athena is right in asking that we be on our guards. It is not the enemies who curse you to your face that you must fear, but those who smile when you are looking and sharpen their swords when you turn your back. In days like these harsh justice is still justice.”

“Do you see anything that may suggest my parents and Mireille have double crossed us, your majesty?,” Altea asked.

“A flawless interpretation of what I see is not always possible. Having too many answers is the same as having no answers at all.“

“The soldiers are growing increasingly more restless,” Reiner said, “especially after Saerys was injured...and now we will be torturing spies—“

“No one is torturing anyone,” Helena interjected. “Forced confessions are not confessions at all, Reiner. One will say anything to make the pain stop, death seems more desirable than a date with the rack. Our rule will hopefully be a merciful one. I devised a truth serum from my demonic spell-books to be used in interrogations. One sip and any question asked must be answered truthfully, it is only painful when one resists.”

“I understand people are antsy, we’re going stir-crazy ourselves. Nobody has ever died of restlessness, but rashness cuts like a blade. We've planted seeds, we have to let them grow,” Athena said, placating Reiner with a look. “We’re upset about Saerys too, but we will not let our emotions control us. We have to keep our heads or we play into her hands and people will die needlessly.”

—

“Pardon my candidness, your majesty, but it is strange to see rulers training with their knights,” Ser Mercier said, her violet coloured eyes tracking Helena’s every movement as they practiced their swordsmanship. Standing opposite her with her blade in hand, she had not seemed like much of an opponent at first. She was smaller than Helena was, right handed, and her long cape seemed to get in the way easily. But she was far smarter than she had originally given her any credit for being. Her footwork was impeccable and her weaknesses were not weaknesses at all, they were distractions.

“How so?,” she hummed as metal struck metal.

“In Eclaciel the royal family would never dream of picking up blades themselves.”

“The old king was much the same way. He was overthrown.” She ducked as the knight swung her sword, diving down onto the fresh blanket of snow and kicking her legs out from under her. Talented and smart as she was, she was rash. She was predictable. At the tip of Helena’s longsword Mireille looked up, her face lined with exhaustion and irritation as she caught her breath on the ground. “We believe in knowing those who follow us and let them know us. We do not ask our people to bleed for strangers. A ruler who hides behind their soldiers soon forgets what death is. To be a good ruler one had best know the names and faces of their enemies, yes?”

She was not aware if Mireille knew that the council was suspicious of her homeland or not, if she had figured out that Helena had been tasked with sizing her up. Altea had been kind enough to inform them that she had no sooner unpacked her bags before she was trying to convince her to return to Eclaciel, and not one person had any idea what to make of that. The real thing about the wicked game that monarchs play was that one could only ever see one side of it — the human side, say — and the eternal side slinks endlessly into the shadow. Or vice versa. It was like the old saw: what does a dragon inside it’s egg look like? No one can ever tell, for the moment the egg hatches, the dragon is no longer inside its egg. The real disaster of this inquiry was that it was the nature of true wickedness to be secret.

She lowered her blade and took a few steps back, allowing the ser to rise on her own. She would not offer a hand. Not yet. Not until she was absolutely certain that the Eclacielians were true. She had suggested slipping some of her truth serum into their nightly tea but Athena and most of the councillors, save for Saerys and Iseul, had thought that potentially drugging them without any physical proof they were allied with the Witch Queen may cause an even bigger mess. Suspicion alone was not enough to condemn a person.

“That is honourable, your grace,” Mireille said as she rose. “Without honour, knights and monarchs alike are no more than common killers.”

Helena cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow, unsure of what to make of her tone. Strangers still baffled her. She had gotten better at picking up on the complex social cues of their friends, but strangers were an entirely different thing. Athena knew people so well that she would know exactly what Mireille’s tone meant, but given that Helena was more natural with the blade they had agreed that she would be the one to size her up whilst Athena was busy training with Iseul. She was tough in the best sense of the word. She had taken many blows, disappointments, and had worked her way through them all. Some people, she knew, would have buckled under, found a clutch, or given up. But she had carved a place for herself and made it work. She may not have been great with people, but she was more than capable of studying a potential threat up close and figuring out their strengths and weaknesses.

Ignoring her confusion, she raised her blades again and adjusted her stance, ready for another round of sparring. Part of her had hoped that in binding their souls she would suddenly be able to see through people like Athena could, but she could not. She felt her love near to her, but she could not for the life of her put her finger on what it was about Ser Mercier that unsettled her so. 

“I mean no disrespect to your monarchs but I must ask, do you consider it honourable that they sat back and watched as the Witch Queen rose to power the first time? Athena and I cannot understand what inspired them to provide aid this time, especially considering that Altea has told us that they knew she had fled to the domains only weeks after she left home.”

“It is not my place to comment on such matters or question the loyalty of my sovereigns, your grace. To do so would be to commit treason,” she did not stop to think about her answer, as if she was a play actress who had rehearsed it word-for-word beforehand. When their swords clashed again there seemed to be extra bite behind her swings, and that was when Helena knew that she had struck a nerve. A small victory, she thought, but a sweet one.

“So you follow them blindly?,” she prodded. The sad truth of history had always been that the unreasoning masses follow the powerful and not the wise, and it seemed Eclaciel was no different from anywhere else. The most insidious thing about that sort of bondage was how easy it was to grow accustomed to it.

“I stay in my place and mind my own business. One who questions the sovereign endangers their life.”

“So you admit you would follow orders even if you knew that they were wrong? Even if they risked the lives of thousands of people?”

“Are you insinuating something, your grace?”

“Is there anything to insinuate?” Spotting an opening Helena disrupted the knights footwork and tripped her up, kicking her sword out of her grasp as she fell. She gazed down at her with a raised eyebrow and did her best to channel Athena’s unimpressed glare, although she was certain that hers was nowhere near as venomous as her love’s could be.

“No,” Mireille huffed whilst pushing herself up onto her knees. “Of course there is not. Although if I did not know better I would say that you are accusing me of something.”

“It is a good thing that you know better, then.”

“I do not know if this is too bold to say, but the people of Eclaciel are not all that different from here. I see how they look at your Lady Athena. Half of them love her like a sister or a daughter, and other half want to spread her legs, but either sort would die for her. Eclacielians harbour the same feelings towards King Ludovic and Queen Adelaide.”

“That is too bold,” Helena deadpanned, her hand tightening around the hilt of her sword. Anger bubbles up inside of her and threatened to break free, the crackle of lightening sparking in her closed fists as she sheathed her blades. Her deep blue eyes were the most terrible thing, though. Some still considered her to be mad, but mad woman sees what she sees. Her eyes saw the woman before her, and they hated. 

“You may think me awful, but I am merely honest. It is the world that is truly awful, your majesty.” Mireille stood up and sheathed her own blade, and looked directly into Helena’s eyes. “Even a fool could see that you do not trust us yet. Given our stance in the first war it does not take a scholar’s brain to figure out why...but given what we have heard of yours, one would think you would understand that all is not always what it seems.”

“When a dog is forced to behave badly, the fault lies with the master, Ser Mercier. I have done my penance.”

Noticing the sparks at Helena’s fingertips, she wisely took a step back. It seemed the great Eclacielian knight was magic-shy. “I did not intend to suggest otherwise.”

“Perhaps the intentions of your monarchs is true, perhaps them agreeing to send their army was indeed a gesture of goodwill, but a ruler who trusts all is just as foolish as a ruler who trusts none. Eclaciel will earn the trust and friendship of the council.”

She smiled and bowed her head, respectfully. “I should hope so, as our knights are more than willing to bleed for you. Our blood will be the seal of our devotion.”

“Athena!,” Iseul shrieked, drawing everybody’s attention to where they were training with the bow, a few feet away. He was impaled against a tree by an arrow that had cut through the expensive fabric of his thick winter tunic, just above his right shoulder. “Remind me not to piss you off, my friend. You might aim for the heart and shoot me in the balls.”

The entire training field burst into laughter as Athena took a dramatic bow, seemingly thoroughly impressed by the fact she had missed the straw target by a good five feet. Even Mireille seemed amused.

“I have never known another to unintentionally threaten lives before breakfast as often as our dear Athena,” Iraia giggled, offering her a square of the dark elven chocolate bar that she was snacking on. The taste of it was far more bitter than one expected, but that was why Helena had come to enjoy it.

“A woman who can threaten your life before breakfast is the only sort of woman worth having,” Helena smirked, whilst handing the piece of chocolate to Mireille.

“You eat chocolate whilst training?” The knight seemed genuinely baffled, but grateful enough for the treat.

“Men shake hands after they beat each other up; we eat chocolate.”

—

‘This is a bad idea,’ Helena said, through the soul bond, as she and Athena slunk through the silent encampment, concealed with ancient runes that rendered them invisible to the naked eye. It was so late at night that mostly everyone had retired and the sounds of people snoring or thoroughly enjoying one another’s company was all one could hear. Wherever she looked, she saw fires still blazing in the fire pits made from stone. They covered the earth like fallen stars, and like the stars there was no end to them, but on such a clear night one did not need the flames to light their way. All the fire did was blur her vision beneath the stars and moon and galaxies blazing overhead. 

‘You didn’t have to join me in my scheming.’

‘I was not about to let you do something foolish and dangerous alone. You are the least sneaky person that I have ever met and given your predisposition to impulsivity, you would be caught within moments without me.’

‘So the moral of the story is that I can be as much of a dumbass as I want as long as you’re around to supervise?’

‘Yes. That is exactly the moral of the story. We can be fools so long as we are fools together.’

‘Do you think Ishara knows what we are doing?’

‘She was asleep when we left, my love, but I am certain she will figure out where we are going and have a few choice words to share with us when we return to the tent.’

‘Choice words is putting it mildly. She’s gonna kick our asses, but I’ll take the fall. She knows I’m incorrigible enough that spying on Ser Mercier would seem like a good idea in my head.’

‘Ah, but she surely considers me to be sensible enough to talk you out of it.’

‘She absolutely does. But she couldn’t feel how unsettled Ser Mercier made you feel this morning, I could...and I know that the both of us can’t just be tripping because her double is my ex-girlfriend. This bitch is a snake and we’re gonna find proof.’

‘It would be considerably easier if we spiked her tea.’

‘Babe. Drugging people. Bad.’

‘We are stalking her in the woods in the dead of night, Athena. I think morality has gone out the window.’

To minimise the footprints left behind in the snow Helena was carrying her betrothed on her hip as she walked step for step into the imprint that Mireille and her companion had left behind. In their closeness as they trudged through the woods, the sorceress could smell the other woman's new elven perfume that had been crafted by Iraia, a musky scent that spoke of moss and earth and wildflowers. Under it, she smelled her determination.

“I do not know what to make of the tsars or the council,” the man walking in Mireille’s company said, his heavily accented voice hoarse but crystal clear in the stillness blanketing the bare forest that surrounded the camp. Clad in heavy furs he looked more like a bear than a man from behind. “They act more like a family than some linked by blood, and they are far smarter than we anticipated — and Princess Altea is devoted to them. It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise, the demon is both in abundance.”

“The sorceress is a skilled warrior and she does not trust us at all. I tested her in every way that I knew how today, the only time her emotions threatened to spiral was when I pointed out how many of their number would like to spread the demon’s legs,” Mireille added.

“Many in ours would, too!” The man laughed and Helena clenched her jaw so tightly that it bore her teeth. Were it not for Athena soothingly stroking her hair she may have lunged forwards run them both through.

“Their manner of ruling has intrigued me more than their beauty. There is honour in it, I think.”

“You believe there to be honour in overthrowing the true monarch?”

“The demon held more claim to the throne than he did by virtue of her bloodline, if you have not forgotten. She is the last surviving link to the Grand Duke Astaroth who’s demonic royal blood has not been dirtied. Blood that pure and ancient may as well be liquid gold.”

“Yes, yes, her blood is so pure that she may as well be the goddess incarnate,” the man groaned. “King Ludovic has said as much and I have heard such things muttered around this slum all day. Some even believe Klein to be some sort of deity, given that she had enough power to steal the sun from the sky. They are strong and their soul connection only strengthened them.”

“I do not think that they pose any sort of threat to Eclaciel, Caligo.”

“Nor do I,” he said, eventually. “I shall admit to you in confidence that they have enraptured me. I have seen many centuries come and go and they are the first monarchs that I can recall shying away from imposing bone deep fear amongst their people. It is clear that they are not weak by any means and their people fear them a healthy amount. King Ludovic and the Witch Queen both believe that the only way to keep people loyal is to make certain they fear them more than they do the enemy...but the tsars are proving that that is an archaic ideology.”

“To speak of our king in such a manner is treason.”

“Not if he cannot hear me, Mireille.” Caligo ran his hands through his dark hair and groaned, loudly. “I have been spying for longer than he has been alive, I am well within my rights to comment however I see fit...and I think that what the tsars are fighting for is admirable. It is high time things changed around here.”

“And the Witch Queen?”

“I think the tsars are stronger. Based upon what I have witnessed I believe allying with them was the best choice his majesty could have made in ensuring his own survival. If the Witch Queen had the power to invade Eclaciel she would have done so already, whilst the tsars have more than enough manpower I do not believe that the desire to expand their empire burns within them.”

“But all of their conversations happen inside their heads, you have not overheard anything that would suggest—“

“I have eyes,” Caligo snapped. “Old powers awaken in the demon’s blood. Shadows stir whenever the sorceress calls her power to hand. We are in an age of terror and wonder will soon be upon us, a true age for goddesses and heroes. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in those who triumph equally over defeat and victory, and as much as I do not like it, I believe the tsars to be great.”

“We may fight with them but we do not fight for them,” Mireille hissed. “I bid you do not forget which banner you serve. They are not our monarchs.”

“They may not be yours, my friend, but I am a faerie. This is my homeland and these are my people...which makes the sorceress and the demon my sovereigns.”

“Are you denouncing the House of Ailerose, Hawkeye?”

“I serve no one but myself and am loyal to nothing but my morals. King Ludovic payed me a handsome sum to spy on the tsars, and I have done my duty and come to my conclusion. Being their ally is the smartest dynastic choice he could make. Klein is dangerous but it is Spencer he must really be on his guard with, she is more cunning than any seem to give her credit for being.”

“She is but a twig of a woman, how dangerous could she be?”

“Make no mistake, she is appearing weak only because she wants to. Do you honestly believe the stunt with the bow and the prince was an accident? There is blood in her gaze and her mind is perhaps more dangerous that the Witch Queen’s herself. She sees through people and has mastered the art of manipulation in such a way that the throne was practically handed to her, she wrapped Queen Ishara round her little finger and overthrew King Barzilai with nothing more than her mind and her silver tongue. She is always ten steps ahead...and that is precisely why she is dangerous.”

“Perhaps she has magic we do not know about? With a bloodline that pure it seems unfathomable that she would not.”

“Perhaps, but I admit I am not yet sure. No one is.“

“How should we proceed?”

“With caution. She already thinks that we harmed the other demon and suspects that we have not been entirely forthcoming in our reasons for coming here, one slip up and we will lose our heads.”

Having heard enough, Helena stilled and allowed their prey to fall out of sight before casting a portal that would take them straight back to their tent. With Athena in her arms, she stepped back through to find everyone’s beds empty and their roommates pacing frantically around the tent in their underwear with messy hair and sleep in their eyes.

“Oh fuck,” Athena deadpanned as she was returned to her feet.

“Where have you been?!,” Ishara yelled, her arms folded over her chest as she paced towards them. Never mind they were the bloody monarchs, they were her daughters first. “Bed empty! No note! Clothes gone! I was out of my mind with worry! You could have been kidnapped! You could have died!”

“Mother, do not be so dramatic before the sun has risen, it is the height of rudeness,” Iraia grumbled. The princess practically flopped back down onto her bed atop the copious woven blankets and groaned into her satin pillow, waving off Ishara’s anger as if it were nothing.

“Rudeness?! Rudeness?! I awoke to find that my children were gone and you wish to lecture me about rudeness, Iraia?!”

“They were probably off having a tryst in the woods, mother! To interrupt such an activity is indeed considered very rude unless one is invited—“

“We were not outside having sex in snow drifts that are almost as tall as I am, we’re not that idiotic,” Athena snorted as they began pulling off their snow caked clothing. “We were spying on Ser Mercier!”

“You did what?!,” Ishara shrieked. Having never seen her so upset or genuinely worried for them, it was actually somewhat nice to see how concerned that she was for their well-being. Green eyes flickered between them as she sat down on the end of their bed and wait on them to finish undressing, with Iraia and Altea both practically jumping onto their bed as well. All semblance of sleep had been wiped from their faces, with Iraia and Altea brimming with excitement.

“They are fucking spying on us and think I’m some sort of evil mastermind or whatever! So we spied on them, spying on us— and, shit, I’m just now realising exactly how impulsive and dangerous it was and am ready to be crowned ADHD poster child of the year.”

“You are just now realising it, are you?,” Helena huffed, as she struggled not to giggle.

“Hey, the good part about having a mental disorder is having a valid reason for all the fucked up things I do because of a damaged prefrontal cortex. The best part is having a completely sane sidekick do the exact same things.”

“What?! You...you two really...you...you are both in so much trouble,” Ishara stammered, her face contorting in nothing short of absolute bewilderment. 

As Athena explained their late night adventure, their tent was silent. If there was one thing Helena never expected to see, it was Ishara looking so shellshocked. She jumped into the conversation when her love began going off on tangents or getting distracted from what she was attempting to recount, and given how excited Athena was and how quickly her mind was moving, she eventually wound up doing most of the talking. Athena was doing her best to focus and be still, but the nature of her condition was making it practically impossible for her.

Helena knew that everybody’s minds automatically seek explanations for things, so when they do not know something for sure, they make assumptions. For someone with ADHD, her symptoms were clear but the explanation was not, especially considering it was not something that people were diagnosed with in their world. So everyone made assumptions about why Athena was so impulsive and hard to talk out of her crazy ideas, or about why she did not simply ‘do better’. Of course, old familiar explanations were used — she just needs to try harder, she is irresponsible, she is immature, she does not care enough, she wants to do badly. Helena had seen that this very much added insult to injury, and she could now actually feel how complex an issue it was for her love to deal with. Not only did it not help her do better, but it just made her question herself: ‘Huh. I thought I tried my best on that, but maybe I didn’t.’ Athena had told her how most people tend to fight back against these accusations, but over time the accusations begin to sink in and influence how people see and feel about themselves...and it broke Helena’s heart to know how bad a person her love suddenly believed herself to be, when mere moments before she had been proud of herself for taking matters into her own hands.

“It was really dumb but it was my idea and Helena tried to talk me out of it,” Athena said, quietly, as soon as the story of their adventure drew to a close. “I’m sorry. If you’re gonna be mad at someone then be mad at me, not Helena. She’s not to blame for the things I do or the way my mind works...or doesn’t work, rather.”

“You did not choose to have this condition, my love. You are no more to blame for it than I am to blame for my spells of melancholy,” she said, entwining her fingers with Athena’s and giving her hand a tight squeeze. The anger had faded from Ishara’s face and all that was there was shock, perhaps at their story, or perhaps at the fact Athena was literally trembling as she anticipated a viscous berating. “Our hearts were in the right place and we were indeed correct in our suspicions. It was both of us. We are all aware that if I had truly wanted to I could have stopped her with ease but I believed the plan to be a solid one.”

“I’m sorry,” Athena said again, her voice tight and small. “I’ll do better.”

“My dear girl, come here,” Ishara said, opening her arms to Athena as she trembled by her side. The queen pulled her into an embrace and kissed the top of her hair as she held her. “Before we talk about what you both have uncovered I wish to know why you are so fearful of this disorder that you have? Do you honestly believe that it would make me care for you any less?”

“The people who raised me called me ‘the heathen’ and would punish me by locking me in a dark closet — sometimes for days at a time without food or water whilst they were out drinking and doing drugs — whenever I showed symptoms of it, Ishara. It’s made people hate me before.”

“It takes a lot of spine and stomach to make yourself into something when no one gives you a foundation to build upon, Athena. I am proud of you and consider myself lucky to have met you, you are no heathen or problem to be locked away.” She rested her chin on top of raven hair as she held her in her arms, each of them holding one another tightly. “I could not see you and Helena in my visions, I did not know where you had gone and I was frightened. Given how Saerys was attacked my mother’s heart ran rampant. The thought of either one of you being harmed is like a blade to my heart.”

“The runes erased us from your visions?,” Helena gasped. “How peculiar...”

“Indeed,” Ishara nodded. “Only death has previously erased one with such a sense of finality. Had I known that you had both left the tent of your own accord then I would not have grown quite so frantic. Both of you must promise that you shall inform me the next time you wish to take part in one of Athena’s schemes. You are grown women, but how else can I seek to protect you if I do not know when you are doing something dangerous?”

“We promise,” Helena nodded, answering for the both of them, as her love was too overwhelmed at the fact she had not been publicly degraded for the way her mind worked. Athena did not hurt Ishara, the situation did. And now that they knew why she felt that way, it would not hurt that way again. She was feeling too much at once, but that was okay, as too much feeling was a hell of a lot better than feeling nothing at all. 

“Now, about what you overheard...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Paint It Black’ by Ciara ❤️


	15. Unsteady

The council’s bathing tent was certainly not the most luxurious place that Helena had ever washed up, but there was something particularly peaceful about the tent of the edge of the wood. Perhaps it was the lux rose scented candles from the costal domain or the woven elven rugs, or the copper bathtub that Ishara had insisted be placed there, but something about it made it a place of supreme relaxation. With a ward set across the door to bar anyone from entering and her love straddling her lap as they soaked in warm water as snow fell and the sun rose outside, it felt as if they were a world away from all of their problems.

Helena’s hands skirted across exposed skin, her fingers dancing over plump breasts and tight abdominal muscles. She enjoyed being allowed to indulge in the simplest of touches with the woman who she loved, all the way through, and who loved her — even with her weaknesses, her flaws, and who had helped everything in her life start to click into place. She knew she could talk to her about anything, and she would listen. She made her laugh, and made her think, made her want, made her see who she really was. And who the sorceress was, was better, just better with her.

“Now if we are finished jousting over sex—,” Helena started, cutting off Athena after yet another one of her filthy jokes as she ate one of the fresh faerie bells covered with elven chocolate out of a bowl sat on the wicker table by the bathtub.

"Babe, I haven't even readied my lance,” Athena smirked, poking her tongue out between her lips.

"That is a very weak double entendre."

She had her there. "It's early as fuck. Why don't you tell me why I’m having breakfast with you."

"I was roused all night." The comment that occurred to her was not only weak, but crude. She let it pass, but Athena heard it through their bond and started cackling hysterically in her embrace. “You are filthy.”

“Well excuse me for enjoying art. And you are the one who thought of it!”

“There was a time I feared you to be innocent as a maiden, do you recall?”

“Bet you were glad when you realised I’m just as kinky and dirty minded as you are, huh?”

“You are far worse than I.”

Athena paused for a moment before shrugging in acceptance. “Yeah...I totally am.”

“My love,” she murmured against Athena’s neck, between the kisses, nips, and bites she was littering down the particularly sensitive skin there as the demon ran her fingers through freshly washed golden hair. She pressed her mouth to her throat, her shoulder, and would have absorbed herself into her skin if she had known a way. Wishing for a way to be even closer to her than even their soul bond allowed. “My one. My only.”

“Mmmm. I wish we could stay like this forever. Just you and me in our own little world,” Athena mumbled. “No war. No politics. No spies within our borders. No disasters. Just us.”

“Someday soon it shall be, I promise.”

Athena hummed in response as she rested her brow against Helena’s. There was not even an inch between their bodies, entwined together in that special way that took Helena’s breath away each and every time she was lucky enough to be held so closely in her lover’s arms. The sort of love that they shared and magic had a great deal in common, she had come to realise. They both enriched the soul and delighted the heart, they both took practice and patience, and they were both strong enough to set the entire world ablaze.

“Would you like me to tell you a story, soulmate of mine?,” she breathed, as she gently stroked her hands up and down her ribs.

“What kinda story?”

“About one of the first moments I realised that I loved you.”

“I’d love to hear that one, babe.”

“It was after a dream that I had, when we were living in her castle. In the dream, one morning early, I could not sleep, so I walked down to a beach. And I saw you. For a minute- I did not realise it was you at all. You were wearing this long scarf tied around your waist, lots of wild colours, and it blew around your legs in the breeze. You had on a red dress under it."

"You..." Athena literally had to catch her breath. "You remember what I was wearing?" 

"Yes I do. And I remember your hair was longer than it is now, more than halfway down your back and closer to your hips. All those mad curls flying. Bare feet. All that golden skin, wild colours, mad curls. My heart just stopped. I thought: That is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And I wanted that woman, in a way I had never wanted one before. Then I saw it was you. You walked off, down the beach, the surf foaming up over your bare feet, your ankles, your calves. And I wanted you.” She paused and allowed her eyes to flicker closed. “I thought I had lost my my mind. I wonder if I have ever told you, but I never really knew what it was to want, until I wanted you. Before I had heard people say to someone they love that they would die for them. They never expect to, of course, and have no plans to. They may believe it, or mean it, or it may simply be an expression of devotion. But after I had that dream I woke up to finds you sleeping at my side and I knew what it meant, then. I understood the impossible depth of emotion and did not ever dare consider that my love for you could grow any deeper...but it has.”

Athena closed the distance between their lips with an all-encompassing kiss, that Helena was all too grateful to accept. Even after an entire hour of doing nothing but thoroughly enjoying one another’s company and warming up from their spy mission in the hard-to-come-by privacy the tub provided, she was not yet tired of the feeling of her love’s lips on her own.

“Funny how three words changed everything, isn’t it?”

“Three words, eight letters...the first time that I said them they seemed like the most frightful things in the world to me. Then you said them back to me and I was yours.”

“You’re the light of my life, Helena Klein,” Athena whispered into another kiss. “I was fumbling around in the dark until I met you...barely managing through the dimness. I didn’t even know it was dim at all because that was the way it had always been. Then I met you and everything changed, you lit me up.”

“My love...”

“How would you feel if I changed my name to Athena Klein after we got married? After telling Ishara a little about how my adoptive parents treated me I realised that I never really felt like a Spencer, and I don’t have any real ties to the other world.” She leaned back a little, silver eyes alight with joy. “And demons didn’t do the whole last name thing...but I’ve always wanted a name that felt like me, you know? Even though ‘Athena’ is just a name some random hospital workers gave me, it feels more like me than ‘Mirren’ does...and Klein—“

“Feels like it is meant to be,” she beamed. “You are my everything, as I am yours. It matters, I think, that these two people who came from abuse and viciousness found each other, helped make each other into better people. Love opened us to more...proved that coming from something does not make it what you are. I think that Athena Klein suits you, spectacularly, my love—“

“Athena! Helena! You must come quick!,” Iraia yelled from outside of the tent. “It is Saerys! Hurry!”

Their heart rates spiked simultaneously at the panic in their friend’s voice, and they flew out of the tub. Using her magic, Helena dried them both off with a wave of her hands and they threw on their clothes with such speed that they almost tripped over themselves multiple times as they barrelled out of the tent. 

“We need your magic, Helena! Altea and mother are barely managing to contain him!,” an ashen faced Iraia said, grabbing both of them by the hands as they took off running towards the men’s dormitory tent. She looked as if she were only halfway through braiding her hair and her decadent outfit was hanging askew off of her tiny frame, clearly whatever that had happened had taken everyone by surprise.

“Contain him?,” Helena asked. The icy wind pulled at her clothes like an insistent lover as she ran, making her muscles scream with the cold. It burned. Nothing could burn like the cold could.

“He is...not himself. I do not know what has happened but it is definitely the work of the Witch Queen.”

There was no time to ask any more questions, as when they arrived inside the men’s tent the problem was clear. Saerys looked more like a beast than a man. Trapped beneath the pink and green threads of Altea and Ishara’s magic he was growling wildly, both of his eyes glowing a bright shade of red, and two pointed horns sprouting from his head. Seeing how close Altea was to passing out, Helena cast a shield of her own over him to allow her to reel back her own magic. And the moment she did the wizard all but collapsed into Imhon’s arms, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. 

“We do not know what happened,” Alain said. “He woke up and—“

“I know exactly what this is,” Athena interjected. “I’ve suspected Saerys is a descendant of Carreau since I got my memories back, the eyes gave it away. I didn’t think— I thought the bloodline had been diluted enough that this wouldn’t be a problem. The Witch Queen is using one of our most sacred— that fucking genocidal cunt!”

“Athena?,” Ishara asked.

Whatever was going on with Saerys was an ancient sort of magic, she could feel that much as she tried to contain him. Holding him should have been no strain for her but whatever the Witch Queen had did to him had empowered him to such a level that after a few seconds she was already beginning to overheat, and the sheer amount of energy that it was taking for her to keep him in place was wearing on Athena, too. Sweat had begun to gather at the demons brow as their heartbeats quickened in sync, they may have been standing still but their bodies were reacting as if they were running laps around the training ground.

“My love, if you know how to fix him you must be quick. I...I do not know how long I can hold him and the soul magic may—“

“It won’t hurt him. It can’t hurt him, not while he’s like this,” Athena said, her heart breaking in two and white hot anger bubbling to the surface. It was all directed towards the Witch Queen, whilst Helena did not have the energy to ask questions she could feel that she had taken something sacred from the demonic culture and attempted to weaponise it.

“What is going on?,” Altea prodded. “Has she created a blood curse?”

“She didn’t create anything and it’s not a curse...or we didn’t consider it to be one, back in the day. I don’t know how Saerys will feel, though.” With the exhaustion already beginning to seep into their bones, they had to help one another onto their knees to keep from keeling over. Breathing hard and trembling from the exertion, their noses began to bleed and they leaned on one another as their friends ran about the men’s messy tent to find cold compresses to hold against their skin. 

“I know you are tired but we need you to try and explain as coherently as you can, Athena,” Reiner said, whilst pulling back raven hair and placing a cold cloth on the back of her neck, as Alain did the same for her. Embroidered handkerchiefs were held beneath their noses to soak up the bleeding as Saerys continued to thrash and growl, sounding and acting more like one of Imhon’s dragons than a man.

“Saerys is a descendant of Carreau, who was said to be a descendant of Ipos, who legend said was the right hand and dragon master of the demonic sun god, Buer. Basically, the legends said that there was a war and Ipos was gifted with the ability to shape shift into this half-man-half-dragon form that we’re seeing right now. That gift continued through his descendants, usually emerging in those with the classic mismatched blue and red eyes — the classic demonic blue and one red, like a dragon’s.” She paused, accepting the glass of water that Imhon was attempting to pour down her throat, and Helena did the same, accepting Iraia’s help in coping with the strain on her body. “Nobody considered it to be a curse back then, it was a gift from the gods to be the empowered chosen one. Being born with those eyes meant that you were as close to being considered a living god as a person who wasn’t the sovereign could be.”

“This was considered a gift!? He more beast than man in this state!,” Iseul cried.

“I don’t know why he’s acting like this, Carreau never did. I saw him take this form time and again at will and he never acted any differently.”

“She must have tampered with the blood she ordered to be collected. She must have done something to activate this...form...and then alter it.” She was careful not to call it a curse in front of Athena, as she could tell how doing so and degrading her culture would hurt her feelings. She may not have understood how this would have been considered anything other than a curse, but that did not give her the right to bash it. Only the small and feebleminded curse what they cannot understand.

“Dragons are viscous beasts until trained,” Imhon said. “Perhaps this is merely a case of him having to learn how to control it? Presumably, Carreau and those who came before him would have had teachers to rely on—“

Imhon was cut off as Saerys rammed against her flickering barrier, managing to break through the blue magic. All anyone could do was throw themselves out of the way as he made a break for the exit of the tent, unarmoured and unarmed there was not much anyone could do to stop him without risking a serious injury.

“Oh shit,” Athena cursed, aloud. 

“What do we do, Athena?! How do we fix this?!,” Reiner asked, as he pulled the demon to her feet. All eyes were on her, but she had no more answers than the rest of them did. She may have known what had been done to their friend, that did not mean that she knew how to fix it. But she was the one person everyone had grown accustomed to turning to in a crisis, she was their leader.

“We make sure he’s safe and doesn’t hurt anyone first and foremost. Come on.”

At her word they took off from the tent, all of them exhausted, bewildered, and not at all dressed for the situation or the weather. It was so cold that it felt as if the sweat clinging to Helena’s skin was beginning to freeze after only a matter of moments outside the warmth of the men’s dormitory, but she did not allow herself to dwell on how triggering such a feeling was. Instead, she lead the pack with Athena at her side as they followed the trail of footprints left behind in the snow that seemed as if they had been made with something so warm that they had melted the snow all the way down to the grass beneath it within the bounds of the print.

“Your majesties, what in the world is the matter?,” Mireille asked, emerging from her tent at the sound of the commotion.

“Surely you and your companion Caligo have uncovered enough information to know exactly what is going on! And that’s assuming neither of you had a hand in it in the first place!,” Athena snapped, waving the others off to go ahead of them. Mireille’s face visibly palled and Athena laughed. “Some spies.”

“It is not what it looks like. Saerys—“

“The mere fact that you know something is amiss with Saerys proves that this is exactly what it looks like!,” Helena snarled, using her magic to bind her arms behind her back. “Neither of us mentioned his name.”

“I— please do not kill me!,” Mireille sobbed as they started off after the rest of the search party towards the woods, each of them leading her by one of her arms. “I will give you any information that you wish—“

“Only cowards plead for their lives,” Athena snapped. “We don't kick a girl when she's down, unless we’re the one who put her down in the first place. And we don't put her down unless she deserves it. And we don't break our word if we give it. So I'll give you our word; you talk and tell us exactly why you’re here, what connection Eclaciel has to the Witch Queen and what part you played in Saerys being attacked, and we won’t execute you.”

“Prince Lional,” the ser sobbed. “She has the prince as her prisoner beneath the shield! He is but a boy of eight summers, who was snatched from his bed by her aides from right under my nose— our king is being blackmailed. Eclaciel has no loyalty to her armies, we merely wish to ensure the child’s safety.”

“And King Ludovic thought that harming the people who would fight to free him was the best way to go about getting him back?,” Athena asked.

“He already lost one of his children, your grace. I do not think logic and reason had much to do with his choices— she commanded us to attack Saerys and spy on the two of you as a means of ensuring the prince remained unharmed. His majesty wishes his loyalty to be with the two of you, as he knows that the Witch Queen is a danger, but his child is being held in captivity. We truly mean no harm.”

“Your excuses are so lame they are practically limping. You say you mean no harm and yet our friend has almost been bled to death and is now roaming the woods in quite a state,” Helena muttered. “You took his choices away.”

“I did not wish to—“

“Were you tortured into obedience, Mireille?,” Athena asked.

“No.”

“Then if you didn’t want to hurt anyone, you wouldn’t have, it’s really that simple. You made your own choices—“

“I was following orders—“

“Some of the worst crimes in history have been committed by people ‘just following orders’,” Athena sighed, resisting the urge to punch her in the face. “Once we have Saerys in our custody you and Caligo, along with the rest of your conspirators, will explain your part in this to the council and they will decide what to do with you. We will help rescue the prince and make sure he returns to Eclaciel safely...regardless of what you have done, we’re not going to leave a child to suffer for it.”

“Thank you, your grace. I will fall upon my own blades if it is what the council desires, all I care about is ensuring Lional’s safety.”

They fell silent as they approached the others with their prisoner in hand, and the look that they gave them was one that both begged them not to ask questions and promised answers at the same time. They had stopped at the edge of a clearing in the woods, where Saerys was basking in the snow like nothing was amiss — were it not for the horns sprouting from his head and the red glowing eyes, one may have said that it looked as if he were enjoying himself.

“I believe that I have a solution,” Altea said. “Perhaps we could mark him with a spellbinding rune, surely it would neutralise the magic that that transformed him—“

“Rune,” Athena gasped, her eyes widening. “That’s it! But it’s not a spellbinding rune that you need, it is— What is happening to him is ceremonially associated with fire, right, it— The opposite is kathink—“

“Water,” Helena interjected, placating her with a gentle look. “We need to mark him with the ancient rune that is associated with water magic, to counter the enchantment.”

“I do not like the thought of branding him without his consent but it is our only option. If you can shield me I will use my staff to do it,” Altea said. 

Adrenaline was all that was keeping Helena upright on her own two feet, each and every muscle in her body screaming in protest as she cast a shield over Altea. Thankfully, Altea never did anything slowly, so the second that the blue bubble surrounded her she took off towards Saerys and had the top of her staff burning the small triangular shape that represented water in the ancient magics into the back of the demon’s shoulder.

Holding her shield, time seemed to blur and slow and even stop. The past and the future vanished until there was nothing but the instant, fear fled, and thought fled, and even her body.

Before he could so much as whip around to face her, the horns on his head disappeared and the glowing in his eyes faded away. There was just Saerys, who clearly had no idea what was going on. He seemed as sullen as he was shocked, but he was himself once again.

—

“Our interrogations of the captured spies revealed that her people escaped the city through an unmarked sewer tunnel using blood magic when our ‘allies’ arrived,” August said, whilst drawing daggers at Mireille and Caligo Hawkeye. The faerie and the knight were bound to the chairs they were seated in, more for the purpose of intimidation than anything else. “May I suggest we handle these traitors the old fashioned way as a means of squeezing information from them?”

“No, you may not.” Athena did not so much as look up from the papers she was studying on the war table, the fingers mindlessly drumming against the glossy wood of the table never stilling. If one did not know better they would assume she was thoroughly bored with the happenings, but Helena knew that she was really just exhausted. Exhausted in her body from the magic they had spent helping their friends, and exhausted in her soul from the three hours she had spent consoling and educating Saerys on what had happened to him, and then the other two she had spent consoling Altea upon her learning of the existence of her younger sibling.

“After what they allowed to happen to Saerys—“

“I said no.” The sharpness of her voice made August flinch, it was not often she took that tone with their friends. Despite their close bond, as tsar, it was her look they flinched from now, her frown that they feared. Mercy, thought Helena as she watched her love with a careful eye. It was a bloody trap. Too much and they call you weak, too little and you are monstrous. Whilst everyone knew that Athena would not have them punished for disobedience, they knew better than to get into a verbal altercation with her, no one had ever walked away victorious.

“Hold your tongue before it digs your grave, my friend,” Iseul quipped, breaking the tension between Athena and August. He was curiously calm. Men were supposed to go mad with grief when their friends were hurt, she knew. They were supposed to tear their hair out by the roots, to curse the gods and swear red vengeance. So why was it that Iseul always seemed to feel so little? At night Helena would often hear him praying. A waste of words. If there were gods or spirits to listen, they are monstrous gods and spirits who tormented people for their sport. Who else would make a world like this, so full of bondage, blood, and pain?

The music from outside was grew louder. The sound of the drums and horns rolled across the camp. The musicians in the nearer council tents were playing a different song than the ones in the general soldiers encampment on the far bank of the hills, though, so it sounded more like a battle than a song. Neither band playing were very good at all, Helena observed.

“Drink willingly or I will make you,” Iraia said whilst pulling the cap off the top of the truth serum that Helena had crafted. She moved in front of Caligo first with the open vial in her hand, filled to the brim with the bright blue glowing potion bubbling within the confines of the decadent blown glass. She expected a fight, expected him to protest, but he did not. He drank willingly and cringed at the bitterness of the mixture as it slipped past his lips.

He and Mireille could easily have been mistaken for twins, if she had not known better. Caligo, from what they had heard, was an old lover of both Iseul and Sophie, and one of the most talented spies in the realm. He wore a leather eyepatch to conceal an unsightly bar fight injury, and was rivalled only by Athena when it came to his general attitude. Were he not spying on her and tied to a chair, perhaps he may have been able to have grown to be one of her greatest friends.

“Which banner do you serve?,” Helena asked.

“Usually whichever is the highest bidder, my lady,” Caligo said, without hesitation. “But I have been inspired into bravery in my time here, I seek only to serve your majesties.”

“What need have we of a traitorous spy with no morals or backbone to speak of?”

“I would be willing to slip into the city through said sewer tunnel and gather useable intel from the ground. My skills have been honed over the four centuries I have seen pass, and none of the Witch Queen’s warriors know my face. I am useful.”

“Why should we trust you?”

“I am a creature of grief and dust and utter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once. I have nothing to lose...and that is my greatest strength.”

“How poetic,” Athena muttered. “Trusting a man who was sent to spy on us to spy for us is so risky it borders on stupidity.”

“Not all risks lead to ruin, your majesty,” Caligo retorted.

“I’m well aware of that.”

He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand. It made him look like a madman, a fool, but it was an intentional deceit. He was clearly a loner. It was a solemn, brooding, tragic loneliness that a man hates with a passion — and yet loves so much he craves for more. Beneath the smiling and deceitful exterior lay the same sort of wicked intellect and knack for manipulation that existed within Athena, in Caligo she had met her match...and she did not know what to make of him. It was hard work to rule a domain, much less all of them.

“Tell me, Caligo,” Athena breathed as she walked towards him spinning the small dagger she carried on her belt with such grace that one could not help but track her every movement. She stopped right in front of him and lightly scraped the tip of the blade down his neck, with no pressure behind it there was not so much as a scratch left behind, but he stiffened and Mireille screwed her eyes closed nonetheless. They were the only two in the room who did not know that she was bluffing. “Did you play any part in what happened to Saerys?”

“N-no.”

Athena hummed and dragged the blade up his neck again. Her love of theatrics certainly never ceased to be entertaining, if nothing else. “Were you aware of what the Witch Queen had in store for him?”

“I was not. I came here tasked with spying on you both and nothing more.”

“Did you make any reports to King Ludovic?”

“I composed a letter but I did not send it, your grace.”

Using her free hand she pulled off his eyepatch and then held his chin, so that he was looking her directly in the eyes. It was impossible to miss the trembling in his limbs as they shook against the arms and legs of the chair that they were bound to. With a knife at his neck and shed of his disguise he looked like a coward; eyes wide with fear and face draining almost entirely of colour as Athena held his gaze.

“Just a little bit of pressure on my blade would end your life in seconds. Do you think I’d hesitate, Caligo?”

“I do not know but only boys believe nothing can harm them, your majesty. Grown men know better.”

“Ah, so you do have a brain inside that traitorous skull of yours.” Athena smirked at him whilst pushing his hair out of his face with her dagger. “Then you’re smart enough to know that if you betray me a second time I will make sure there can be no third.”

“Y-yes.”

“Scared?”

“Terrified, your grace.”

“If you’re afraid of me and my friend here, how can you hope to summon the courage required to spy for us, mm? The knights you’ll face in the city are far more terrifying than me.”

“More terrifying than a legend come to life after thousands of years? I doubt it.”

“Do you?”

“I believe there to be a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.” The faerie took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving Athena’s. “I do not know quite what to make of you. It is deeply unsettling. You are not the angry and stupid leader that I was expecting you to be. I much prefer angry and stupid to composed and cunning.”

“Terrible times breed terrible things, Caligo.”

“I did not say that it was terrible. Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. The darkness would only swallow dark and deepen. The good and the light and cunning are the keenest weapons. It is clear that you have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done.”

Athena stepped away from him at that, as unsettled as she always was whenever anyone saw through the act. Everybody lies when they are afraid. Some people tell many lies, some but a few. Some have only one lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it...though some small part of them will always know that it is still a lie, and that will show upon their faces. “Stop talking.”

“Your majesty—“

“Only a fool makes threats she’s not prepared to carry out. If I were to threaten to hit you unless you shut your mouth, and you presumed to speak, what do you think I’d do?”

Caligo gulped, but did not reply.

With a gentle hand on top of the luxurious black fabric of her tunic in the small of her back, Helena guided her love away from Caligo and Mireille, leaving Reiner and Iraia to continue their interrogation. Tension radiated from every muscle in the demon’s body, as it often did whenever she had to lead and betray herself the way she just had. That sort of heroism was odd, it was the sort of heroism that came from just doing more than one wants to do or thinks that they can. Sometimes it was just doing the crappy things, the unhappy things other people will not or cannot do. It was not just leading a bloody crusade because there was nobody else there to do it. It was getting out of bed in the morning when it seems like too much trouble, or doing whatever is required in the moment for the greater good regardless of how it made one’s insides ache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after the ‘Unsteady’ Erich Lee Gravity Remix ❤️


	16. Everything I Need

“A warrior who cannot sleep soon has no strength to fight and a sovereign who cannot sleep soon has no strength to reign, my love,” Helena murmured. She had awoken to find that her love was not in her arms any longer, plagued by bad dreams and guilt she had no business baring Athena would often find solace on the edge of the field where the dragons grazed. The beasts had taken a liking to her and they reminded her of a home that no longer existed.

The demon hummed as a warm mug of blackcurrant and elderflower cordial was pressed into her hands and the sorceress sat down on the old stone wall at her side. Starlight and comet tails burned the tips of endless greenery that had never been preened below into hammered silver. Like thousands of tapers in a chapel, just blown out but still glowing. It was an odd sight to see one field lush and green — magically induced, for the comfort of the beasts — surrounded by what was starting to seem like an endless winter. If one could drown in the grass gazing upward at the night sky...it might be the best way to die, Helena thought.

“This is good. Did you make this?” Her eyes never left the stars overhead. It was quite a haunting sight to see such a lovely girl gazing at the stars that way, as it almost seemed as if the stars were gazing right back at her.

“I did. The elders in my village used to say that it soothed the mind.”

Athena smiled at her and rested her head on her shoulder. 

“You know that there is not anything that you can do right now, yes? The council decided to send Caligo into the city and he will not return until dawn. Depriving yourself of sleep seems all sorts of foolish.”

“I don’t trust as easily as I used to. I call this ‘facing my enemy so they can’t stab me in the back’.”

“You do not have to trust the faerie but I know that you trust in Ishara. She would not have assured you that all would be well if it were not so.“ She kissed the top of her raven hair and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “You are worrying yourself to the point of suffering and sickness. I know it is not an easy cycle to break but we must find a way to harness this before it wears any further on your sanity.”

“I need to get better at taking my own advice, huh?”

“Mhm. Had I to work myself up to such a state I regularly went two or three nights without sleep you would ‘kick my ass’, as it were.”

Athena huffed in amusement.

“I could search your thoughts for the answers to what has your heart feeling so heavy. I will not encroach upon your privacy without expressed permission to do so, but I do wish that you would attempt to verbalise this. It helps.”

“You already know I’ve never been the biggest fan of myself, and that’s at the best of times. I just feel sick and ashamed with myself for how I treated Caligo and Mireille, even though it was necessary.” She nuzzled closer and took another sip of her warm drink. “How am I any different from the Witch Queen when I played with them as if they were my puppets?”

“You bore so much guilt during the act that you grew physically nauseous and dizzy, whereas the art of manipulation was an aphrodisiac to her. You did not physically hurt anyone. You had to resist the urge to apologise when they were released from the council chambers. Bad people do not care about other people as much as you do.”

“Being in charge is far more morally grey than I believed it to be when Barzilai was on the throne. I understand now why he was so rigid in his protocols and so slow to make any moves, you just can’t win. Sometimes there won’t be a right choice, just the best of several bad options...and that scares me.”

“Barzilai was a fool and a coward with a head far too small to support the crown, my love. You are always able to find the delicate balance between what is right and what is necessary, and then you act quickly and decisively. You are the strongest ruler the realm has ever seen and I never wish for you to doubt that. That legacy will be everlasting.”

“Glory may be everlasting, but its fleeting as well — soon forgotten in the aftermath of even the most famous of victories if they lead to greater disasters.” She shook her head and took another long sip of her drink. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be such a downer. I just can’t stop thinking about every little thing that could possibly go wrong, then on top of that I’m coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas of how we could make the world better after the war.”

“Do not apologise for how you are feeling, Athena. It is alright to feel this way, you need not be sorry.” She kissed her hair once again. “Will you share some of your ideas with me? They may distract you from your anxious thoughts.”

“I’ve been thinking about Altea’s school, again, and how she needs money to fund it, and how we have more money than anyone else does because of all the treasures we found on the island. I want to give her what she needs, more than what she needs, so that the children who go there want for nothing.”

“A splendid idea, my love. What else?”

“A lot of people have died and left behind families, and a lot more will die before this is done. I want to make sure the families of the fallen soldiers are given at least two years worth of their loved one’s salary. That should help them make ends meet and will give them more than enough time to grieve and figure things out.”

“That is very generous and would certainly help a lot of people.”

Athena nodded. “And I want to end serfdom, make it a criminal offence. It’ll piss off a lot of nobles but I don’t care, they can deal. The system is fucked up and designed to keep the poorest people as slaves. We’re not fighting for a world that condones that sort of behaviour. Education, healthcare, all the things that people need to survive and live a long life, will no longer be privileges, they’ll be rights. A generation from now we’ll have a healthier, smarter, and more literate population.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Helena’s lips and she suddenly felt so proud that she could hardly contain herself. As someone who had been born into and ran from a life of serfdom, the idea that no other would ever have to suffer the same fate pleased her greatly. Some things in life are out of your control, that she and Athena both knew, but one can either make it a party or a tragedy...and it seemed to her that her love was absolutely determined to make a party from her own private misery.

“Athena the Great, indeed.”

Athena cleared her throat, loudly, and shot her a pouty look so comical that she almost tumbled backwards off of the wall they were perched on.

“You are really going to make me say it?”

“Yes, I really am.”

“Fine, fine...Athena the Incorrigible.”

“Thank you!” 

“You are certainly consistent.”

She leaned in, giggling, and took her love’s lips on her own. It was still absolutely bewildering to her at times that she was capable of being loved and loving so deeply in turn, that her broken heart had healed as much as it had. The cracks were always there, like thin scars, but they had healed. She lived and worked, laughed and ate, walked and talked with those cracks. She hoped that in time that even the scars would heal, too, and that she would always know what it was to know such joy. 

“I have something that I wish to give you, my love, but you must close your eyes.”

“You’re not gonna push me off the wall are you? If you are would you make sure you push me into the snow? I bruise like a peach these days so pushing me onto the grass would just be rude.”

“I was not planning to shove you but now I am considering it.”

Athena giggled and closed her eyes, the musical sound of her laughter making Helena’s heart soar.

In the velvet lined pouch attached to her belt was the ring that she had carved meticulously by hand and engraved with the words ‘forever and a day’ on the inside of the band. With the war progressing so quickly she had decided that waiting to present it to her was foolish, as no tomorrow was guaranteed and all that they had was the moment that they happened to find themselves in.

She knew that Athena would say yes, but still her hands trembled as she took her left hand in hers. Were they not bound at the soul she may have given herself a stroke or some other stress related ailment from the way her heart was fluttering. How people without soul bonds coped, she could not fathom.

“You may open your eyes now, my love.”

Grey eyes flickered open and widened immediately at the sight of the ring in her hand. The look of pure joy that spread across her love’s face was one that she had not seen in quite some time, one that she had come to miss greatly. 

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“I did not even ask my question yet!,” Helena giggled against Athena’s lips as the happiest of tears built up behind her own eyes and the joy in her heart made her feel as if she were flying. Leaning back just enough to see the whole of her face, Helena had to force herself to take a few deep breaths to keep from getting so over excited that words would evade her entirely. “In my home village they used to say that it should be a privilege to be able to say "I love you" to someone. It should not be something people say just because they feel like it. A privilege that is earned. They said that you had to earn the right to be loved; no, love is unconditional, if you love someone, they do not have to earn it. But. The right to tell someone that you love them? That has to be earned. You have to earn the right to be believed. I never thought that a woman like you would ever be mine, that the other half of my soul would find me after thousands of years and an entire world of distance, it is such a wild and wondrous thing.” She wiped Athena’s tears away and leaned in to kiss her again. “You have taught me that change is as much about loss as gain, about giving something up even as you reached for something new or different. Since meeting you my life has changed in ways that I never thought possible. I am happier than I have ever been. For the first time in my life I am whole and I am home. A lifetime with you at my side hardly sounds like long enough, my love...but it is all that I have to offer you.” She kissed her, again. “Athena Spencer, it would be my life’s honour to be your wife. Will you marry me?”

Athena could not even reply through her tears but she nodded emphatically as the ring was slid onto her finger, and then dove into Helena’s arms. They were both trembling and crying tears of joy as they clung to one another, unashamed and hopeful for the future amidst salty kisses. The pale pink light of dawn that was beginning to break sparkled on branch and leaf and stone and snow. Every blade of grass in the dragon’s field was carved from emerald, every drip of water and flake of snow turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the canvas tents of their army were encased in a fine glaze of ice and buried in snow. 

“Did you make this ring for me?”

“Mhm, I noticed the tradition during our time in Chicago and in Los Angeles. It does not exist here but I wanted you to have something of the world you were raised, even though your life is here now.”

“You are so amazing, Helena,” Athena breathed. “This is my favourite gift that anyone has ever given me.”

“I just set the bar incredibly high for myself, did I not?,” she chuckled, earning herself a playful love tap on the thigh.

Athena giggled and rolled her eyes. “Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will always love you. I hope you know that.”

“Oh, how I do, my love. How I do.”

“You know, technically speaking, as the monarchs, we could just declare that we’re married and wives now and everyone would have to respect it—“

“Oh no,” she scolded with a light click of her tongue. Missing the hint of a blush blooming on her fiancé’s cheeks would have been damn impossible, and she had to choke back a laugh at that. “As appealing as the idea of calling you my wife is, you deserve a proper wedding, my love...and I think Ishara may slaughter us had we to deprive her of the honour of fulfilling the ‘mother of the bride’ duties for us both.”

“Yeah...she totally would, wouldn’t she? And I think Asta Falke would be offended if we didn’t ask her to help and Heloise would want to be invited, too.”

“Iseul would take offence at not being consulted on matters considering our hairstyles, and Altea and Iraia would not miss the opportunity to propose some outrageous toast or another over dinner, would they?”

Athena laughed and shook her head. “When did we amass such a huge extended family? Like, one minute we were in the woods by ourselves and the next we have an eccentric elven queen for a mom and like five hundred siblings. Shit’s crazy.”

“I have been pondering such matters, myself, as of late. Though I admit the idea of being a part of such a family pleases me. It is not something that I ever thought that I would ever be lucky enough to experience.”

“Me neither. Since I’ve been able to remember little things about my brothers it’s pretty cool to have a family unit— not that I’m replacing them, I just...it’s really nice to be apart of something bigger than myself, again.”

She soothed her with a gentle kiss on the lips. “I know that they would have wanted that for you. Wherever they are, I know that they are proud.”

Before Athena could reply one of the terrifying looking fully grown beasts that was almost the size of a castle nuzzled it’s face into her side, seeking her attention. The woman was so wary of horses that she would not ride one by herself but somehow was completely at peace surrounded by the horned, scaly, fire breathing creatures that could swallow her entirely if they wished it. The dragons hated most people other than their rider, so the fact that all twenty of Imhon’s army had taken to her had been a shock to everyone — and had made the ‘little dragon’ moniker truly start to make sense to her. She was so maddening that even the beasts were drawn to her.

“Wyst, I still know that you’re here. I don’t have to be looking right at you all the time to love you!" Athena’s amusement was evident in the sweet giggle that escaped from the back of her throat as her hand moved over the thick black and red coloured scales that covered the dragon’s snout. 

“Is she not the one that Imhon said was untameable?”

“No dragon is untameable if you’re patient enough,” Athena replied. “Wyst is a Fae Horntail, the rarest and most stubborn breed of dragon. They found her egg in a cave in the demonic lands about two centuries ago, she’s the first of her breed that the Idreis dynasty has ever seen...but they’re the ones that we used to have protecting the island.” She kissed the beast’s nose and it’s piercing blood red eyes flickered closed as it purred. “I told Imhon that they were handling her all wrong. These creatures have no sweeter joy in life than jeering at their betters. You can’t train a Fae Horntail like you would any other dragon, it’s not in their nature to submit to those they believe weaker than they are— you know what, I’ll just show you...do you trust me?”

“With my life.”

Athena smiled at that and hopped off of the wall, so that she was standing before the dragon. She trusted her fiancé but the animal made her uneasy, to face off with a fully grown dragon was something different and deadlier than she had ever faced: a dance where the smallest misstep meant death. She may have been mildly terrified but she would not tell Athena to stop, as she knew that to forbid her anything meant that it became her heart’s desire. 

In fluent demonic Athena commanded the beast to submit, in a tone that was bright as broken glass and sharp enough to cut herself on. She had seen Imhon Idreis trapped in a losing battle of wills with Wyst, so she did not expect the mighty dragon to bend to Athena’s command without hesitation.

“You have been working with her when you cannot sleep...”

“Gotta amuse myself somehow, right?,” Athena chucked, offering her hand. “Come on.”

“Come where?”

“I find the most romantic place to watch the sunrise is amongst the clouds.”

“You...you wish to fly on the dragon?!”

“I have flown on her...she’s one of the best fliers I’ve ever seen. I know it sounds crazy and downright suicidal but I need you to trust me, this isn’t me being ADHD-ed out of my mind. You won’t regret this. I promise.”

All she could do was gape at her. She wanted to get mad or tell her not to be give into her impulsivity, but the fact that Athena was actually excited about something again made every sensible thought in her head turn to mush. So she agreed and climbed onto the back of the creature, wrapping her arms tightly around Athena’s waist and silently praying that Ishara would remain sleeping long enough not to see them.

With a mere word Wyst took wing, lifting high off of the ground with strong flaps of her muscular, flame coloured wings. She expected to be afraid or at least unnerved by the experience...but she was not. They were so high up that they may as well have been close enough to touch the colours of the sunrise, gliding high above the misty snow covered fields and thick woodland that surrounded the city.

“Hold on tight and don’t close your eyes!,” Athena giggled. 

Before Helena could even ask what she meant, they were soaring and tumbling, twirling and diving through sunlit white clouds floating amongst the strands of orange and pink light. The sound of both of their laughter and echoed above the gentle flapping sound of Wyst’s wings as the rode the winds of the rising sun. If the sky could dream then it would dream of dragons, Helena decided.

“Enjoying yourself?,” Athena beamed, leaning back against her as they began to glide smoothly.

“Incredibly so. Can we do this more often, my love?”

“We can do this as often as your heart desires.”

Helena giggled as she pressed her lips against the pulse point of her love’s neck and squeezed her in her arms. Her breath was warm on her neck as she bent her head, resting her cheek against her hair. Her heart beat so quickly, and yet she felt utterly calm — as if she could have stayed there forever and not minded, stayed there forever and let the world fall apart around them. In a fight or a council meeting they were both lethal but around each other they melted. Up so high they felt far away from the crown, from the war, from all of their problems waiting for them on the ground. Their wild hearts felt free.

—

“That’s impossible.” The fingers drumming against the wooden arms of Athena’s throne stilled and the demon’s face palled as Altea confirmed that the traumatised faerie spy before them had not been magically manipulated into his frightened state upon returning to their camp. “I mean...it’s impossible, right? Corpses can’t move—“

“Those children were dead, your majesty!,” Caligo practically wailed, throwing himself at Athena’s feet. “I do not know how she has done it, but each and every one of the child soldiers seen from the dragons are dead! They do not eat nor do they sleep! They are immune to the blade! Their eyes black as pitch! They are dead, I tell you! Dead!”

“May I remind you that you are speaking to the tsar, Hawkeye. Watch your tone,” August snarled. The knight hauled the faerie to his feet and got him out of Athena’s personal space, and the demon gave him a sweet smile in response.

“Apologies, great lady. I mean no offence, but she is death incarnate, I tell you! Night triumphant!”

“It’s fine, Caligo—“

“Darkness is upon us!,” he wailed. “I know darkness, your majesties.”

“We know darkness, Caligo, and there are different kinds,” Helena replied. “There is the darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful.” She pictured each. “There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good.”

“If one spends too long staring into the dark the darkness begins to stare back, my lady.”

“Caligo, take a deep breath,” Athena said, softly. “Don’t let this affect you like this. Only you can decide what breaks you. Only you. Now go and rest, take some time to compose yourself. Do whatever you have to.”

The trembling faerie nodded and bowed deeply at the waist before swiftly turning on his heels and bolting from the council chamber. If one can learn to endure the sort of horror he had just witnessed, they can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it — to love it, even. Some endured it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger. She did not know which the spy would choose — we each survive in our own way. Fae warriors: invaluable in a fight — and raging pains in her backside at all other times.

“It is not...theoretically impossible,” Altea said.

“How is the question,” Helena sighed whilst pinching the bridge of her nose in the hopes it would stave off a headache. “She did not possess that sort of magic the last we fought. To animate the dead is magic so dark that it remained far out of her reach for years.”

“Killing hundreds of children would certainly blacken the soul enough for such a power to become accessible,” Ishara said.

“But...how does one kill an enemy who is already dead?,” Iseul asked.

“Perhaps we save ourselves a fight and have the dragons do what they do best?,” Imhon suggested.

“No,” Athena interjected, quickly. The drumming of her nails against her throne began again as she met Imhon’s gaze. “Caligo has reported that there are still living citizens who are being kept under house arrest, people forced into her service, and political prisoners being held in the dungeons of the castle. An honourable death is well and good, but if the life at stake is not your own, what then? It’s not sacrifice if it’s someone else you’re condemning to death.”

“Many atrocities, have been done in the name of the greater good,” Helena added, “and this is not one of them. History would look back and blame the two of us for such an act of cowardice...and we will not have it.”

“We cannot hesitate or give into fear any longer!,” Reiner growled, frustration rippling from his body and dripping from every word. 

“There is a difference between fear and caution, Reiner. Your anger isn’t achieving anything so either calm down and separate your emotions from your duty or take a walk,” Athena deadpanned, without looking up from Caligo’s written notes that were rested on her lap.

“But—“

“Enough! We have enough enemies as it is! There are worse things out there to face! We are not having this discussion. War is sanctioned murder, no matter what side you're on but we have to be better than the side we’re opposing.”

“People are dying—“

“And even more people will die if we charge in unprepared.” When Athena looked up her gaze may as well have been daggers with the sharpness behind it. “If you want to barrel in and lead hundreds of soldiers into a massacre by an enemy we don’t yet understand then you be my guest, but you will be the one to inform each of their families of how your rashness got them killed. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

Reiner rubbed at his sleep lined eyes and let out a loud sight of frustration. “No. No I do not. Forgive me.”

“If the children are dead then we do not have to be careful about injuring them in our assault, do we?,” Iraia asked.

“Injuring them, no, but charging in and fighting off undead children seems...rather sickening,” Helena said as she took a seat on her own wooden throne beside Athena’s. “Caligo has stated that they do not fall when stabbed or shot— with weapons made of steel...perhaps that is the problem!”

“So we forge new weapons,” Ishara smiled, nodding her head emphatically at the revelation.

“Why make new weapons when you can use old ones?,” Athena asked, rising to her feet. “What if I told you that I think I know where we can find the armoury in the castle where I was born? I’ve been remembering more and more each day, like the entire history of my people is ingrained into my mind. Our weapons aren’t anything like any of you have ever seen before and they’re not made of steel— they were to begin with, but we evolved past it around three centuries before I was born. The blades of our swords were made with draconian diamonds, they’re stronger than steel and imbued with ancient pixie magic to keep them sharp — and there are a lot more weapons that could come in handy.”

“Then let us go to the island, my dear. Show us what it is that you think that you know,” Ishara beamed.

Deep down Helena was done with politics and intrigue. She loved Athena, and no empire, no Witch Queen, and no earthly fear would keep her from enjoying the rest of her life with her. No, if they tried to take her from her, she would rip the world apart with her bare hands. And for some reason, that did not terrify her as it ought to have. Together they would remake the world — remake it for them, those they loved with this glorious, burning heart that they shared; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the afterlife, she would not be ashamed. They would build it for their people, who had survived for so long, and whom they would not abandon. They would make them a kingdom such as there never had been, even if it took until their very last breath.

—

Even in the depths of the coldest winter that the realm had seen in decades, the island was temperate and free of snow. The castle was ancient and made of polished marble bricks, golden doors, and despite having been through generations worth of decay it remained remarkably hale. The inside was covered in a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs almost as old as the castle itself lined every windowsill, even though there were no spiders to be found. All the rooms and corridors were still fully furnished and untouched by the atrocities that had happened within their walls. A great hall completed the eastern wing of the castle, with glassless floor-length windows bordering the jewel encrusted walls. Every room was incredibly well lit, save for the ones in which glass so old that it distorted the outside world lined the windows.

The beginning of Athena’s story was lost to most of their number, as was the memory of the world from which she sprang. The end? The end was not yet, and when it came all would not know it. They had only the middle, or rather a piece of that middle, the smallest part of the legend, a mere fragment of the quest. The last time they had been on the island they had not ventured inside the castle walls, so it was a strange thing to be escorting her into her childhood home for the first time in well over a thousand years.

“This is the room where they were murdered,” Athena breathed, grey eyes focused on the large painted murals of her on the solid gold walls as she fiddled with the dagger on her belt, freeing it from its leather holster. “Servants who survived rampage of the rebellion soldiers painted these, after. Rumours of my survival spread like wildfire when my body wasn’t found...and none of the upstarts were very good at keeping secrets.”

“How do you know that?,” Alain asked, wincing when Athena sliced her palm. Helena’s own palm tingled when the gash began to bleed, so even if she had not been watching she would have known her love was injured.

“Blood calls to blood.” Athena spread the blood across the wall, painting a large red circle on the ancient gold. “When I said I remember everything, I really mean everything. Even the things I wasn’t physically around for. Every day new memories come to me...I don’t necessarily know who’s they are but I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives.”

When Athena drew her hand away from the wall Reiner stepped up and healed the wound as an archway appeared before them. The gasps of their friends echoed through the large room, with Altea practically dripping with pink sparkles, Saerys stone still in awe, and even Ishara as wide-eyed as a child looking at the last sweet treat in the world.

“Iseul, if you touch anything in here without permission I might smack you.”

“I am offended, my lady,” Iseul snorted, dipping into the most exaggerated bow and making everyone laugh. 

‘I don’t want them knowing about the guns,’ Athena said, through their bond, as she linked their hands together and started off towards the archway. ‘Nothing good ever comes from guns...so I don’t want them introduced to them. We can win this war without them.’

‘As you wish, my love.’ Hand in hand, they were infinite. They were the beginning and the ending; they were eternity. Glowing softly in an aura of red light like newborn gods as their soul magic entwined.

‘Helena?’

‘Mm?’

‘Tell me that we’ll get through this. Tell me that we’ll survive the war. Tell me —‘ She swallowed hard. ‘Tell me that even if I lead us all to ruin, we’ll burn in hell together.’

‘Oh, my love. You know that I will never leave you, I would walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you. It will all be fine, even if it goes to hell, so long as I was there with you. Whatever you have to do to survive, whatever you do from spite or rage or selfishness…I do not give a damn. You are here — and you are perfect. You always were, and you always will be. Always.’

The armoury itself was not all that different from modern armouries that Helena was used to, save for the fact ancient weapons were stacked up in place of modern ones. Having access to Athena’s memories, she knew what each of them were for. She could see the fantastic looking diamond swords glinting in the sunlight being wielded in battles that took place in an ancient world that no longer existed. In her memories, glowing like sunset, a red diamond sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed demon queen who cast no shadow but looked vaguely similar to her love. A red cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, great beasts took wing, breathing fire over a cowering army.

“We’ll take the swords, the axes, the spears, the bows, and if there is any suits of armour that anyone wants you can take those too—“

“Why are there crowns in here?,” Altea asked. “An armoury seems like a queer place to store regalia.”

On a shelf above Altea’s head there were indeed crowns, many of them. Each one was a masterpiece of precious metal and gemstones, somehow untouched by the dust that lined everything else. The ones that Athena’s parents had been murdered wearing were not there, but the spaces for them remained as if waiting for them to be returned.

“It...um...it—“

“It was the most well guarded room,” Helena interjected as Athena became too choked up to string a sentence together. “Only the blood of a royal would reveal it.”

“You two should have crowns,” Ishara declared. “I can see it...you must each wear one and stand tall in them. You will be great. You will rattle the stars themselves. The two of you together, you can do anything if only you dare. Your court will not just change the world. It will start the world over.”

Helena expected Athena to fire back with a witty dismissal, but her eyes were glued on the family heirlooms. She could feel her wrestling with the contradiction of her hatred of ‘looking royal’ and her desire to be close to her ancestors and her history. She could feel the shame in her, too, and she was not going to stand for it.

“Try one on, my love,” she said. “Which one do you like?”

“Tsar Lilith the Second’s. She was the least problematic.”

With a wave of her hand, Helena levitated the golden tiara down from the shelf and into her hands. The metal was carved into the shape of two dragons, each facing a brilliant ruby at the centre of the piece that was meant to symbolise the rose in her family crest. It was a work of art.

With steady hands, she placed it on her love’s head. They said that crowns often did a number on the heads which bore them but that was not the case with Athena. The demon knew that a queen belongs to her people, not to herself, and whilst that truth displeased her the mere fact that she had embraced it made her strong. It is a rare person to face who they are and not run from it — not be broken by it. 

She had a realistic grasp of her own strengths and weaknesses. Her mind was her weapon. Helena had her swords and her spells, Reiner had has crossbow, and Athena had her mind. One did not need a weapon at all when they were born one. She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Athena Spencer, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph. She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would triumph in the end, of that Helena was certain. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster — but light, light to drive out darkness. This girl was not like wildfire — she was wildfire. Deadly, stubborn, and uncontrollable. And slightly out of her wits in the best of ways. To some that was terrifying but if she was the sweet, terrifying darkness, Helena was the glittering light that only her shadows could make clear.

“How do I look?”

“Like a queen,” Iraia breathed.

“No,” Saerys smiled. “You look like a tsar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Everything I Need’ by Skylar Grey ❤️


	17. Gloria Regali

“No matter what happens,” Helena said quietly, “I want to thank you, my love.”

Athena looked up whilst fastening the buckles on the sorceress’ armour and tilted her head to the side. “For what?”

Her blue eyes stung, but she blamed it on the fierce chill in the air and blinked away the dampness. “For making my freedom mean something.”

She did not say anything; she just took the fingers of her right hand and held them in her left, allowing her thumb to brush the engagement ring she wore beneath her gloves. Neither of them were fine, not even close. But they were not dead. And that was a start. They were heading into the battle that would begin the new world, whether they survived or not, one way or another, the world would never be the same again after the days fight, that much was a certainty.

“If we die," Athena said, "I don't think the gods will even know what to do with us, if they exist.”

“Then let us make this a fight worthy of a song, mm?” She placed the golden dragon tiara atop raven braided hair, matching the golden ring of metal decorating her own head.

“This will be the great war of our time,” Athena said quietly. “When we are dead, when even our grandchildren’s grandchildren are dead, they will still be talking about this war. They will whisper about it around fires, sing of it in the great halls. Who lived and died, who fought and who cowered. It’s pretty wild.”

“I am glad that people are getting to hear your story. Getting to know that there is a special strength..." As she spoke she realised she had needed to hear it, needed to know it, too. "A special strength in enduring such dark trials and hardships...and still remaining warm, and kind. Still willing to trust — and reach out.”

“I’m glad people are getting to hear yours, too, babe.”

“Who would have thought that a single moment of kindness, of mercy, would lead to this? From a young woman who ended lives to a young woman who saved them without even realising that she was.” She rested her brow against hers. “Whatever happens, we shall be together. Where you go, I go. Death has been my curse and my gift and my friend for these long, long years. I would be at peace if I were to greet it again under the golden morning sun and depart this life with you, fighting to restore goodness in this world.”

“Athena, Helena, the army and the council awaits your command, my dear girls,” Ishara said, from outside the tent flap.

“Ready?,” Helena asked, taking a moment to indulge in a kiss on her fiancé’s lips.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. I love you.”

“As I love you. Always.”

For months the soldier’s tent of heavy canvas, dyed the dark creamy white that sometimes passed for pale gold had been their home. Only the royal banner that streamed atop the center pole marked it as the residence of the most powerful women in the realm. That, and the guards outside it; knights leaning on tall spears, with the badge of the unity of the domains sewn over their own. It was strange to be leaving now, knowing that they may not return.

The entire army, dragon’s, horses, and the council had all gathered in the snow covered poppy fields, in the exact spot where Athena had delivered her first speech that had inadvertently made everything fall into place. Since then what they had both become was a force of nature. They were a calamity and a commander of what would one day become immortal warriors of legend. They had erupted and she was sure it was felt across worlds, and those who opposed them trembled in fear at what they had awoken.

“So far we have won a battle, today we win the war,” Athena said, addressing the utterly silent battalions of soldiers standing at attention. In battle a sovereigns lungs are as important as her sword arm. It does not matter how brave or brilliant the woman is if her commands cannot be heard — and Athena had everybody’s ear. They were listening. They were ready to bleed for her. “Ishara has told us that history will look back on this moment as the Battle of the Klein’s...as today I fight for and alongside Helena — not my consort, not fiancé. Helena is High Lady, Tsar of the Domains. My equal in every way; she will wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never designated to breeding and parties and child rearing. My queen.” Athena winked at her and gave her hand a tight squeeze. And though she stood taller than her, she felt the exact same height as Athena stared at her. No, not just Athena. Tsar Athena the First, rightful heir to the kingdom, she realised, was staring at her with love in her eyes. “And today you not only fight for us, you fight for yourselves and your families and for the world you want to live in. You do not fear. You do not falter. You do not yield. You go in, you get her, you save the damn city, and you come out again. Unleash hell.”

Fear could break a line faster than any enemy charge could, but there was not an ounce of fear lingering in the air. Only determination. The soldiers raised their demonic weapons in the air and they cheered for them in a hundred different tongues she could not understand, and she was not afraid. Athena’s speech was brief but it was enough. The warrior tsar had done what she did best and turned the tide of the war with nothing more than her silver tongue...and Helena had never been prouder of her. That wildness, that untamed fierceness...They were not born of a completely free heart, but of one that had known despair so complete that living brightly, living violently, was the only possible way one could hope to outrun it.

Every step was filled with confidence as she approached the Witch Queen’s barrier, ready to do what only she could, ready to turn the power that had inspired nothing but fear and hatred for thirty years to new ends. She no longer feared herself. She accepted who and what she was, though she did not choose it. She was Helena Klein, High Lady and Tsar of the Domains, and was her own champion now.

She did not look back, as she knew she was not alone. She would never look back, never, ever again. It helps no one and nothing to look back, she had learned. She moved like a midnight storm, everything she had learned, the relationships she had formed, the respect she had earned, all searing through her mind as her black magic sparked in her palm. She felt more powerful than she ever had before. She had been beaten, raped, and manipulated into believing that she was weak when she was actually the strongest in any given room — and she would fall for the Witch Queen’s deceits no longer. She smiled at her love with every last shred of her courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future as the dome engulfing the city began to flicker as the power surged through her body. 

“Let us go rattle the stars, my love.”

Athena smiled back at her, her stormy eyes turning blue in the winters dawn. It was such an Athena look, the twinkle of mischief, the hint of exasperation, the kindness that would always, always make her the sweetest person that she had ever known. “Let’s give em hell, babe.”

The shield shattered like breaking glass, with icy blue magic raining down from the sky like flakes of snow over the city and their army. The Witch Queen’s magic warred with her own for a moment, knocking the wind right out of her lungs, but the discomfort lasted mere seconds and Ishara’s voice began their storming of the Capital.

In the winters dawn fog the city was blurred like an old painting; it could have been a great work drawn by expert hand. The buildings and the exotic elven trees were silhouetted grey, two-dimensional. The ice lined streets yawned in every direction without the old newspaper dispensers and enchanted oil street-lamps to break the view between buildings. It did not smell right at all, in fact it smelled of nothing but the damp trees not yet in bloom and the witch queen’s magic. Without the fumes of the endless stalls that usually filled up market places its odour was as fresh as any meadow without tincture of grass. Even in the sound of the ensuing battle it somehow sounded as if their armoured footsteps across the black ice were echoing like stones off a cave wall. Even Athena’s homeland had not felt quite as destitute as the Capital did after months of the Witch Queen reigning supreme within its walls.

It is easy for one to forget where they are or how to get back home, at this final stage of a war. Often times the lord they are fighting for usually does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down mercilessly on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world.

Helena could not even tell which of the Witch Queen’s soldiers were alive and which were dead. Every face she came across was gaunt and pale with exhaustion, and the sort of pain that did not touch the body, a pain that did not race along the nerve paths, a pain that filled the mind so completely and so shatteringly that not even the smallest part of you was free to think or plan or meditate. The pain was you, and you were the pain. There was nothing to dissociate from, no cool sanctum of thought where you might retreat. She and Athena moved as one with the council and Mireille at their backs as they made a beeline for the castle, practically untouchable with the magic of the soul stone enchanting their every movement in a way that did not feel like a drain upon the body at all. Overhead, armoured dragon’s roared and breathed fire with extraordinary precision over battalions of her soldiers that were hidden in side alley ways, killing them where they stood before they could ambush them. 

Helena could only stare at Saerys, fighting back-to-back with Alain. He was different from the feral creature he’d become the morning they had been disturbed from their bath. With Athena and Imhon’s counselling what he was right now, the edge on which he was balancing...spirits help them all. He was like a strong cross between a dragon and a lion, a predator, and he could not be caged.

The battle fever set in quickly in the viscous cold, trudging over blood stained snow and black ice whilst dodging the cowardly magical boobytraps was exhausting down to the marrow of the bone. Helena had not experienced it herself in such a long time that she had almost forgotten what it felt like, though she and Iraia had discussed it often enough over dinner. How time seemed to blur and slow and even stop, how the past and the future vanished until there was nothing but the very instant, how fear fled to the winds, and thought fled, and even your body seemed to act of its own accord and years of muscle memory took control. One did not feel their wounds then, or the ache in their spine from the weight of the armor, or the sweat running down into their eyes and blurring their vision. Once one stops feeling they stop thinking, they come close to stopping being themselves. There is only the fight. Only the foe. Only this man and then the next and the next and the next, and whilst one is aware that they are afraid and tired they are not. They are alive, and death is all around but the swords move so slowly, one can dance through them laughing. Battle fever. 

Athena was at her side, so she powered on. Their love could burn the entire world to ashes. She was hers and she was hers in turn, and they had found each other across centuries of bloodshed and loss, across oceans and kingdoms and war. The most powerful sorceress and the most pure-blooded demon in the world. They were a worthy asset for any army. Especially when they had fallen in love with each other.

“I was indeed correct about the whore, little light. Such a callous and bloodthirsty beast. Did I not warn you that she was power-hungry and sly?” The Witch Queen’s voice echoed throughout the abandoned square outside of the castle. The square itself was as it was before, just devoid of the warmth that made it worthy of being the centre of life in the realm. It was where the a collection of buildings and roads laid like a carpet for a queen that would never come met as one. Banners hung with slogans to be read only by the icy wind, catching her eye as their number formed two lines, standing back to back with one another. The market was all set up like it was awaiting the stall holders at any moment. The sounds of roaring dragons and dying men echoed above the sound of clattering weapons. Against the wall of the local herbalist’s store was a horse carriage, the leather reigns dangling onto the snow covered cobblestone sidewalk. Ahead was the clock tower in the centre of the castle’s square, which seemed forever to be stuck at half past noon. If Helena stood still enough perhaps time was indeed frozen, perhaps it was just her bones that did not realise it.

“How is her magic still working?!,” Altea asked. “Our curse should have—“

“Blood calls to blood, my dear,” The Witch Queen stated as she stalked out of the foggy shadows, a red shield surrounding her. She was and cruel, and paced through the fog as sedately as if she were talking a walk in the park. She looked as if she had been crafted from the darkness between the stars. “You were dimwitted enough to allow blood magic to serve as a weakness to your pitiful attempt at a curse. The whore and I are of one line.”

The two women stared at each other, one gold and one silver, one an evil Witch and one her precious soul-bonded. There was nothing friendly in the stares, nothing human — two with traces of the same noble demonic blood locked in some unspoken dominance battle. For the first time Helena realised that the Witch Queen did not just hate Athena, she was jealous of her. So jealous that it bordered on the brink of insanity — she was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of nothing but shadows. She did not know what to do with that jealousy, that rage. It clearly burned and hunted her, still made her want to rip and roar and rend the world into pieces. She could see it all — too keenly, too sharply.

“This war,” Athena said, brazenly, “is the second movement in a game that has been played since those ancient days across the sea. The world began in fire and blood and it will end that way. You’re not living through this.”

Helena’s magic sent the Witch Queen sprawling, and it then hurled her against the marble steps leading up towards the castle doors — so hard that her head cracked against the stones and the magic fizzled from her splayed fingers. She had no generals left to make a move to help her, and she struck him once more with her power. The white marble was stained red and splintered where she hit it, spiderwebbing through the ice toward them. With wave after wave she hit her, but she rose, awash with power and unfazed by the injury.

—

Helena’s was not a story of darkness. That would not be her story. She would fold it into herself, this place, this fear, but it would not be the whole story. It would not be her story. A great battle is a terrible thing but in the midst of blood and carnage, there is sometimes also beauty, beauty that could break even the strongest of hearts.

The snow was stained a sickening shade of red as magic and weapons battled the Witch Queen and her army of the animated dead. She was the strongest witch that Helena had ever come across, but she was alone. Keeping her distracted had allowed Mireille and Imhon to enter the castle and free the political prisoners through the backdoor, so that they could lead them to the safety of their encampment. A sludgy mixture of rain and snow began beating over them, a distant reminder that there was still a real world around them outside of the battle.

Every step. Every curve into darkness. Every moment of despair and rage and pain. It had led her to precisely where she needed to be. Where she wanted to be. The sound of Athena’s scream silenced their arena and made Helena become almost bloodless with fear. The Witch Queen had her arms and legs trapped in ice, the soul magic that flowed through the demon’s veins battling with all its might in an exhausted attempt to free herself from her grasp.

“Athena!,” Helena screamed as she threw herself against the Witch Queen’s shield and battered it with every spell that she could think of.

“Stop, babe," Athena breathed, blood filling her mouth. "Please."

Athena’s arms buckled as she fought to rise, and blood dripped from her nose, splattering on the snow. Their eyes met. The bond between them went taut, and she could feel Athena attempting to conceal her agony so that she would not be unduly weakened by it. She flashed between her own body and hers, seeing herself through her eyes, bleeding and broken and sobbing.

She snapped back into her own mind as the Witch Queen turned to her again. "Stop? Stop?," she mocked, and flicked a sharp piece of ice from her finger so that it sliced into Athena’s neck. The gash was shallow, but that did not make it any less of a distressing sight. “I had forgotten that demon minds are easy to shatter as eggshells.” She ran a sharpened shard of ice across the base of Athena’s throat, cutting a little deeper this time. Helena shuddered, her eyes burning. "Look at how delightful she is — look how she is trying not to cry out in terror. It would be quick, I promise.”

“She is mine! And if you lay a hand on her, you lose that hand! And then you will lose your head! I will strip you to the marrow and grind your bones to dust!”

“Will you? Stop this silly rebellion right now, you dog. Kneel to me or the thing that you love most will be used as a weapon against you.”

“Never!,” Helena growled, raising her hand to drain away the Witch Queen’s shield.

“You could drain that shield, but if you do I will tear your lover apart far beyond what Wolfson’s magic can heal. I will defile her just enough that she lives, so that you have no choice but to watch and feel her as she suffers—“

Before she could finish August barrelled through her shield, sword in hand. All she could do was watch as she staggered away from him, almost tripping over the hem of her dress on the black ice as he swung at her.

“Athena? My love?”

“Is she well?,” Iraia whispered.

“She is in a great deal of pain and barely conscious. I can feel fending off sleep as it threatens to drag her under.”

“Are you feeling the effects of it?”

“I only feel her weakening, it has not begun to draw on our connection as of yet—“

She was cut off when an almighty rumble echoed from behind the shield and one of the stone lion statues flew from its position on the castle steps and crashed into August. The knight went flying through the air as if he were a rag doll, but the moment his limp body hit the shield a bright pink ancient rune shattered the pulsating magic. She could not allow herself to think of August as she and Iraia rushed toward Athena, dodging shards of flying ice with the backup of their friends.

“I will tend to her, my friend. You are the only one who is strong enough to defeat her. Trust in me.”

She did not even have to stop and think about it, she trusted in Iraia. Her friend would do what she could for Athena, she would get her to Reiner’s side.

“Face me, Witch Queen!,” Helena barked. She was ablaze with black fire and red fury, a walking cataclysm shaking the very ground that she walked on with every step as she walked towards the woman who had tormented and defiled her for years. The white hot heat that surrounded her melted every icicle that was hurriedly thrown her way, every spell bouncing off of the well of power and strength she was drawing from. 

She was not afraid. She never would be again. Her eyes — those ghostly silver eyes that would probably haunt her for the rest of her life — were bright. But she was no longer frightened of her. She had evolved past that. She had earned more friends than she had ever thought that she would have through many dangers. A lover who had healed her broken and weary soul, and who had waited for her against all hope, despite all odds. She was Helena Klein, and she would bend the knee to no one. The power deep within her did not belong to the Witch Queen. Not any longer. It belonged to her – as she belonged only to herself, as her future was hers to decide, to forge.

“So you are capable of speaking without using the whore as a crutch,” the Witch Queen cackled. She was sounding awfully confident for someone who was backing away from her, for someone who’s fear was showing. Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone, and hers was imminent.

“I have always been capable of speaking for myself—“

“You are a monster, little light. Look at you. Do you truly think that any of those mongrels you seek to protect can understand you like I can? I have raised this world to ash to get you back, Helena. Is that not love in its truest form?”

“No, it is not. To call that love stains the very foundations of it! I am not a monster nor a beast to be commanded. I love my family and they love me in turn, but not think I will not become a monster to keep them protected.”

She would not be weak again. She would not be dependent on anyone else. She would never have to endure the touch of the Witch Queen as it dragged her along because she was too helpless to know where and how to hit. Never again. One last time — she would have to wear this mask one last time, and then she could truly bury General Klein forever.

“You might fight well, but your manners are a disgrace. Did I not teach you better than this?!” Another icicle was thrown her way, which melted before she even had to bat it away. The Witch Queen looked like a wounded beast with her back against the wall, and Helena was enjoying the hunt. She was in control now.

“I can act and talk like a lady, if it pleases me...my dear,” she cooed. Athena had taught her a thing or two about taunting the enemy, and sometimes the best digs were simply throwing their own words back in their face and watching them squirm.

“Oh, Helena. You really are the most pathetic creature. I can admit that the filthy whore has a scholar’s mind that is enviable, even to myself, but you? You have nothing. She is with you merely because you are useful to her. She does not love you, her kind cannot love. You are a tool—“

“I am no tool. I do not mind stepping out of the shadows, I did not mind even being in the shadows to begin with, so long as she was with me. My love through so many dangers —who had fought for me when no one else would, even myself. I am fighting for her now.”

The girl of fire and destruction, the cursed child, Helena Klein, General Klein, Cursebreaker, High Lady and Tsar of the Domains. She burned through each title inside her head, even as she became them, became what those village elders had hissed when they reported on a child-sorceress’ growing, unstable power in a tiny backwater village. A promise that had forever been whispered into the blackness. In those days, the smell of dirt and leather and blood had clung to her like perfume. Now it was perfume that clung to her like perfume. She was no monster. She had once lived in fear of other people. She let other people walk all over her just because she was too afraid of the consequences for refusing. She did not know how to refuse. Today, she said no more.

Athena reached out to her through their bond with an image, just one single image to spur her on. It was her beautiful face — or it what would be her face in a few years. When they had settled. But it was not the slightly older features that almost knocked the breath from her. It was the hand on her sweetly rounded out belly. She stared toward her, hair still flowing. Behind her, four small figures emerged. Helena almost fell to her knees. The tallest: a girl with golden hair and stormy eyes, angel-faced and as proud as Helena. The boy beside her, nearly her height, smiled at her, warm and bright, his Klein blue eyes near-glowing beneath his cap of raven hair. The boy next to him, raven-haired and grey-eyed, might as well have been Athena’s twin. And the smallest girl, clinging to her mother’s legs a fine-boned, golden-haired child, little more than a babe, her blue eyes harking back to a lineage she did not know much of. Children. Her children. Their children. With another mere weeks from being born. Her family. The family she might have, the future she might have, should she destroy the beast standing before her. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her entire life.

She summoned every ounce of strength that she had left in her and surged towards the Witch Queen, slamming her against the clock tower of the square with such force that cracks appeared in the stone and shattered the crown on her head. With one hand closed around her neck she lifted her from her feet so that she was looking her in the eye, screaming as the magic scalded her and thrashing wildly within her grasp as she drained. Deep inside her, rising with every swirling flake, a sparkling, crisp power bloomed to life. 

“Do you understand how it feels to be helpless now? You and everything you are belong to me!” 

Upon draining the very last drop from her body she returned her to her feet, keeping her pinned against the wall as she howled and cursed her in a hundred vile ways. Without her magic she really was just like every other ordinary human; weak and fragile. Helpless.

Ignoring her, Helena stepped aside and Alain took her place. And all around them, as if the world itself were indeed falling apart, sleet rained down. Bits of slushy rain and ash glowed on his lips as he stood over his old friend. As Helena stared at him, breathless, he smiled back. The smile the world would likely never see, the smile he had given up for the sake of his the pathetic woman before them. In his armour of red and gold and wielding the red diamond sword that had been used by the demonic tsars for generations, he had moved beyond her. He was free.

“Alain, my dearest friend, my love, you must help me,” she sniffled, pathetically, in a cowardly attempt at saving her own skin.

“You were my friend once...but no longer. Nothing of the woman I adored remains within your heart.”

“Are you so foolish that you believe these monsters are your friends?”

“Friends are friends whenever you make them. I am doing what I should have done long ago,” he said with tears pouring down his face. “Forgive me.” Alain slid his sword out and drew it across her throat, as smooth as summer silk. Her blood covered his hands in a hot gush and she tried to shout but there was blood in her mouth as well.

And then she collapsed onto the snow; cold and limp, like any other mere mortal. There was no pomp or ceremony, just another corpse no different than the rest.

Alain threw his arms around her neck as they both fell to their knees beside the woman who had tormented them for so many years. Embracing Alain was different, somehow. She curled into his warmth as they sobbed, like for one moment, she did not have to worry about anything or anybody else as relief and the weight of what they has just accomplished washed over them in waves. Her heart was raw and trembling, and the darkness faded.

“So here we are...it is really over,” she whispered, still clinging to him with all her might.

“The end of the road,” Alain sniffled. He stared at her; she stared right back. Unyielding, unbreakable. They had been cut from the same cloth. Alain took a breath and looked at their joined hands through the torn fabric of Helena’s glove — then opened his to examine his own scarred palm, crisscrossed with the lingering marks of her ‘love’. The cuts that she had made that littered both of their skin joining them in an eternal bond. 

“No. The beginning of the next.”

“I...I rather like the sound of that. I will never stop being grateful to have you in my life, either. No matter what lies ahead, my dear sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter named after ‘Gloria Regali’ by Tommee Profitt and Fleurie ❤️


	18. A Thousand Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter named after ‘a thousand years’ by Aimée Proal, Lindsey Stirling, & Kurt Hugo Schneider ❤️

A pulse of surprise shot through Helena’s aching body, of wicked delight against her mental shields as they shattered for the last time over the corpse of her abuser, at the dark, membranous wings flapping in the air as dragons ridden by elven warriors flew overhead and the war drew to its end. Every icy kiss of sleet sent jolts of cold through her body. Sensitive — so sensitive, even beneath her suit of armour.

As a child growing up in a destitute backwater she had often wished for adventure, for old spells and the love of a queen. But she had not realised it would be like this — a fight for her freedom that she had faced alone for so long. She had always imagined that there would have been someone to help her right from the very start — a loyal friend or a one-armed soldier or something. She had not imagined she would be so alone for so long, until the day a lightening storm would bring her love to her and ignite a flicker of hope she could have sworn she felt answer all of her questions, like the fluttering heart of an ember. Unleashing a cry that set the world trembling.

As she and Alain helped each other to their feet she noticed that all around people were weeping. Keening. But no more screams of terror. No more bloodshed and destruction. Their family stood out against the blood stained snow, August and Athena — both the only two who seemed to have been injured at all in the battle — receiving treatment from Reiner.

“Oh, my love. What has she done to you?”

“Broke my leg and my nose. I might be left with a bit of a limp but don’t worry, Reiner made me pretty again,” Athena beamed as the sorceress sank to her knees at her side. There was so much blood. It had spread to where Helena was kneeling, gleaming bright as it soaked into the snow. It covered the different plates of Athena’s armour she was covered in so much blood that she could not actually tell where she was bleeding. It even speckled the ornate hilts of her swords and knives, scattered around them like bones. 

“And all of this blood?”

“She manage to pierce the artery in my neck when she tried to slit my throat and it was like a fountain of blood, it’s all good now.”

“Will she have a lingering limp or is that the blood loss talking?,” she asked Reiner.

“She had a compound fracture of her femur. I healed what I could but it was a particularly severe break that will require rest, only time will tell how much trauma will remain in the area.”

“Hey, a limp earned in a war after being attacked by my evil doppelgänger is a badass story. I’m not tripping.”

“You are a strange one, my friend,” Saerys laughed.

She did not know which one of them moved first, but then Athena’s mouth was on hers, and Helena caressed her face, pulling her closer, claiming her as she claimed her. Athena’s arms wrapped tighter around her, but gently — so careful of the wounds that ached. She brushed her tongue against hers, and she opened her mouth to her. Each movement of their lips was a whisper of what was to come once they were both healed, and a promise. The kiss was slow — thorough. As if they had all the time in the world. As if they were the only ones in it. 

“She is dead.” Saying those words made a sharp, quick panic rise up in her, an aching pain that had her throat closing. “Dead,” she repeated. Maybe it was only out of blind terror at the abyss opening up again around her, but she whispered, “how can it be real, my love?”

“This is real, I promise. You are awake.” She kissed the tip of her nose. “It’s real because all of us came together and decided that enough was enough, because you were so brave...so fucking brave. What we think to be our greatest weakness can sometimes be our biggest strength. The most unlikely person can alter the course of history. Love will always win the day, sweetheart.”

“My life with her was like dying a little every day. It was like being alive, too. It was pain. It destroyed me and unmade me and forged me. I hated it, because I knew I could not escape it, and knew it would forever change me. And that witch...I thought that I loved her, too. I loved her in a disgusting way I cannot describe — other than to tell you that it was the most powerfully soul destroying thing I have ever yet felt, greater than rage, than magic. And now knowing that she is truly gone...I feel....freer than I have in a long time.” Helena pulled back, her thumb stroking a bruised cheek. She slid her arms around her waist and sobbed. And even as the city wailed, her mate, the High Tsar of the Domains held her and allowed her to have her moment of weakness. She soothed her through their bond, reminding her that it was okay for her to cry and perhaps even mourn, until she could at last summon the strength that she had left within her to face the blood-drenched new world.

Like a shimmering disk too rich and clear to be described, the sun broke through the dreary winter clouds and lined everything with gold. The snow continued to fall, though. The snow fell and fell, dancing and curling like sparkling spindrifts, the white fresh and clean against the blood staining it. And despite herself, despite her numb limbs, she quieted that relentless, vicious part of her mind to take in the snow-veiled city. It was like seeing the entire world finally being reborn. The black ice still covering the ground and walls of buildings was so smooth that the sun and glinting gemstone weapons blended on its dark surface like a living ribbon of eternity.

“What should we do with her body?,” August asked, his voice still rough from the pain of having his shoulder reset.

“Cremate her,” Alain replied. “Helena destroyed her crown, so she cannot return. I think that it would be best for everyone if we set her ablaze.”

All eyes fell upon her and Athena, and they nodded in agreement.

With a single wave of her hand, Altea did the honours. In an exhausted silence, all any of their number could do was stare as the orange flames engulfed the lifeless corpse and then began to burn blue. She had never seen such a glorious sight. In every land, every battle, she had never seen anything as glorious as her abuser’s corpse burning before her very eyes. Sun shining and snow falling around them.

Bells began pealing; people shouted. Not with fear. But in wonder. A hand rising to her mouth, Helena scanned the broad sweep of the world. The icy wind brushed away her tears, carrying with it a song, ancient and lovely. Athena twined her fingers in hers and whispered, awe in every word, “For you, sweetheart. All of it is for you and Alain.” 

Helena wept again then. Wept in joy that lit her heart, brighter than any magic could ever be. For across every domain, spread beneath the white canopy of winter, carpeting the entire world, the new world was finally blooming.

— — — —

Ever since she was a child Helena had always dreamed of a place where the sort of people who hurt others did not get to live. Where anyone, regardless of who they are and where they came from and what their rank is could dwell in peace. Where she could have a garden in the spring, and swim in the rivers and the ocean in the summer. She had never had such a thing before in her entire life and for the longest time she was not sure where that would be, or even if she would be lucky enough to have one. A home.

It had been six turns of the season since the war’s end. Six turns of the season of ruling and providing people with guidance and a sense of stability as everyone adjusted to living in the new world that they had fought for. Six turns of the season since Athena’s most outrageous and bizarre idea had provided thousands of people who’s homes and land had been destroyed far beyond repair in the war with a safe haven, a fresh start.

Helena had never been happier.

She had her happy ending. As did the land, the people — each and every one of them would have their happy ending too as the war faded further and further into history. It seemed like everyone had made and embraced those first few strides toward healing. Toward inner peace. By virtue of Athena’s world renowned iron will and silver tongue and Helena’s knack for learning and shepherding technological and magical advancement, their kingdom was full of light, of fire, of knowledge, and starlight and sunshine. Like they, themselves, had over-flowed with as they snapped the final tether on the old regime’s power and cleaved the darkness away, burning it up until it was nothing at all. During the war their goal had been far bigger than revenge. Their purpose greater than personal retribution. And it showed.

Neither of them feared the night any longer, its darkness was not as haunting as it once had been. It was the time when they slept, the time when they made love or unintentionally conversed until dawn, the time when the stars and galaxies emerged over their home with glittering beauty and made them feel wonderfully small and insignificant.

She had awoken that morning feeling clear — which had been happening more and more often. The grief and pain were still there, twisting beneath the surface deep down inside her, but she felt as though she could see clearly. As though she could breathe. Waking up in a ancient marble palace by the sea on an island that was no longer myth or secret or ruin that had been restored to exceed its former glory in every single way, happiness was no longer a single flickering candle in the blackness of Helena’s heart, it was the dawn. Outside the wide open windows the abundance of Fae Horntails that had been born in the war’s wake soared across the sky, signalling the start of another day on the island that the villagers of every race and species had come to name; ‘The Isle of the Tsars’. With her wife laying in her arms she kissed her thoroughly, lazily, knowing that she had a lifetime of kisses to look forward to. She liked that. A lot. Even after so long she was still easily overwhelmed by how much she adored her love, without whom she would never have learned that light can be found in even the darkest of hells. That kindness can thrive even amongst cruelty.

“My boobs hurt. They feel bigger today, do they look bigger to you?,” Athena asked, smiling at her as the sorceress rubbed her hand across her wife’s subtly rounded out belly. 

“Yes, they do look obnoxiously large. I would be lying if I said I was not thoroughly enjoying the view.” She earned herself a love tap on the shoulder and a playful whack with one of the woven elven throw pillows that lined their bed for that one as they dissolved into giggles. Athena was the great warrior tsar that legends had told of — a tsar who had bowed to no one, a tsar who had turned towards her opponents and faced them all down and never apologised for it. She was a dragon amongst men. And Helena was the only one in the world who got to see her this way. Who knew her so deeply. “You are exquisite, my love,” she breathed, once the laughter had died down.

Slender fingers slid into her messy golden hair, the gentle expression that Athena was looking at her with still melted her heart. She had seen her in a whirlwind of steel and blood and watched her cut through men as though they were stalks of wheat in a field, she understood how she had gotten so close to becoming a weapon and losing her humanity...yet she had only ever looked at her like she were the most perfect and pure being. “You’re just trying to get in my pants.”

“It is not trying if I am already in them...and you are naked, so that expression holds no meaning.”

“Touché,” Athena giggled, drawing her in for another kiss. Helena was content as Athena caressed her lips with her own. Not afraid of anything in the world as she did it again, kissing one corner of her mouth, then the other. She adored being able to call Athena her wife but she was fully aware that the soul bond that ran between them was so deep that marriage palled in comparison to it.

“It seems our child is already as prone to fidgeting as you are,” she smiled. The little fluttering movements beneath her palm had drawn the wind straight from her lungs the first time she had felt them — and still threatened to bring her to her knees in awe whenever their daughter moved for her.

“With the strength in those kicks I’m willing to bet I’m gonna have to birth a baby who is already as tall as you are. I swear to god, she’ll be taller than me by the time she hits five.”

She snorted, but resisted the urge to make any short jokes before the hormones had been settled with a few warm lemon cookies. “Perhaps she will display the more classic demonic abilities and may already be stronger than most unborn children at the same gestation.”

“Imagine that. A super strong demon baby with your magical abilities and stubbornness. We’ll be grey haired in a few years.”

“I think we will manage,” she smiled. “It will be a taste of our own medicine, as Ishara and Lady Asta have told us.”

Athena giggled. “No child of ours will be a walk in the park and most people would be at least a little nervous about that—“

“We are not most people, wife of mine.” She gave her another kiss. Silver eyes fluttered when Helena nestled her head against her arm. Within the blissful little cocoon of their bedroom, they watched each other. And she realised she might very well be content to do exactly that forever. “And I know you like it that way.”

“I love it,” the demon beamed whilst stretching out on the embroidered faerie mandala blanket. “Life would be so boring if it was any other way.”

Unpredictability had once terrified Helena down to her very core, yet she had grown into a place in her life where no matter what happened tomorrow, or next week, or next year, she was grateful. Grateful to the gods, to fate, to herself for being brave enough to kiss Athena that night in her old bedroom and for being brave enough to grab her from the Witch Queen’s throne — despite how that initial leap of utter faith, that initial lurch into motion had made her limb lock up. Grateful for the time and the life she had been given with her. 

For the first time in her entire life, she was truly and completely happy without fear. The feeling curled around every thought, a tendril of hope that grew with each breath. She was not afraid to look at it for too long, and no longer believed that actually acknowledging its existence would cause it to suddenly disappear. Perhaps the world would never be entirely perfect after all that it had gone through, but she had actually found her own special sort of peace and freedom in a life where each day she was able to study and create and put all of her energy into creating things that would make the world better. 

There would always be good days and hard days for her, even now. But she knew now not to let the hard days win. She knew how to be okay. She knew that the Witch Queen used to tell her things just to confuse her — to haunt her thoughts long after she had faced her. So she did her best each day to not give a second thought to anything that had ever come from the cretin’s lips. She would have been delighted if Helena allowed herself to fret over whatever nonsense she said...so she would not dwell on it and give her the satisfaction of knowing that she was still troubling her after her death; she put those thoughts far from her mind.

According to those who had known both; Barzilai’s court had been the work of a child, and the Court of the Tsar’s was the work of a god in comparison. Living in their palace alongside them were some of their friends, who had become their intimate circle of Retainers after the war; Alain, Heloise, Iraia, and Saerys. Altea’s school was a mere handful of miles away from their home, in a building that had once been a monastery at the foot of the second highest mountain on the island. And with the use of portals and Helena’s star gates that she was working on building from Carreau’s detailed notes, the others visited so frequently that it felt as if they were never truly far from each other’s company at all. The world had ended and begun anew, and yet nothing had changed, either. The sun would still rise and fall, the seasons would still change on rote, heedless of whether she was free or enslaved, sorceress or scholar or tsar, heedless of who was alive and who was gone. The world would keep moving on. It was comforting in a strange way.

Walking through the airy, yellow rose-lined hallways of their home that Alain ensured were always in full bloom, through the gigantic windows that dwarfed them as they passed they could see; to the north, the thickly forested foothills flowed to the towering wall of mountains. To the west, over the rooftops of the village, the plain rolled into lush farmland, endless and open, all the way to the sea. And in the east, past the waterfalls and hot springs, the grassy plain yielded to ancient forests where children of every species and young dragons often played together in perfect harmony, with more mountains beyond them. The rest of their kingdom had been elevated to a state that mirrored that on the island, yet there was no place like this in the world. Not so serene. So loved by its people and its rulers.

As they walked Helena did not fail to note how the cheerful servants smiled at the hand she kept in the small of Athena’s back. The glow on the demon’s face. Even if they had not already announced the pregnancy to everyone outside of their inner circle, anyone could have guessed well enough what that glow was from. With the memory of her final trauma sustained in the war lingering on her body she did not try to hide her subtle limp as they strolled through the hallways on their way to their daily breakfast picnic date in the garden, she had never even given it a second thought.

The merry music and laughter from the village could be heard from the peaceful haven amongst the perfectly cultivated tropical flowers that lined the gardens, the summer solstice festivities seemed to have already burst into swing. The village was a place of art and music, watched over by an marble castle opal towers so bright they could be viewed from the mainland on a clear summers day. The ancient musical score being played was like a tapestry woven of light and dark and colours, building delicate links in a chain that latched on to her heart and spread out into the world, binding her to it, connecting everything. Helena could not help but look ahead, toward that laughter, that light — and that vision of the future Athena had first shown her long ago, more beautiful than anything she could have ever wished for — anything she had wished for, on those ancient, solitary nights in a lifeless castle with only the stars for company. She felt like she was drunk, and silly, and so full of the glory of being young and alive and free and in the capital of the new world that she could hardly contain herself most days.

Whenever either of them sat upon their thrones it weighed on them, nestled against their bones, that new burden and the weight of the responsibility on their shoulders. No longer were they refugees: unwanted and without any rights, without any voice. No longer a hated general. No longer a rogue and reluctant princess. 

An undisputed monarchy of not just blood, but also of legends.

Tsars. 

They had joined souls, and a flawed world ended, the next one began. They were infinite. They were the beginning and the ending; they were eternity. The arrogant king who had opposed them had gaped as trees of flame died out to reveal the them hand in hand, glowing like deities as their souls entwined beneath the sun that they had returned to the sky. He became darkness; folded himself into the powers he carried, as if he were nothing but malice on a dark wind. The Witch Queen struck them, swallowed them, tried to separate them. But they only held tighter to each other, past and present and future; flickering between an ancient hall of gold in an island castle perched above the world, a tiny shack in a destitute woodland village that seldom offered any escape, and another place, perfect and strange, where it seemed they had been crafted from stardust and light. A wall of night had tried to knock them back and break them. But they could not be contained. The darkness had seldom paused for a breath, but they had battled through. They had erupted. And whenever they lifted their heads to survey all that they had fought for, the sorceress and the demon burned brighter than the stars.

\-- fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all of your support whilst writing this! I’m considering maybe doing another full length fic set in my version of the L&L universe because I had so much fun writing Helena and Athena. Let me know what you think! ❤️


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